To Be (Safe), Or Not to Be (Safe)? Why and When Gig Workers Stay Safe Under Customer Demands.

Gig workers in the food delivery industry constantly encounter highly severe life-threatening occupational safety risks. However, little scholarly attention was paid to the hazards of this job that involves potential dangers in traffic situations. Drawing on job demands-resources theory, we theorize a typical tension in food delivery workers' daily experience, namely, finance-safety tradeoff, and examine why and when customer demands may influence delivery workers' safety (i.e., safety behavior, driving speed) using experience sampling method (ESM). We conducted a 14-day diary study with 117 food delivery workers in China. Results indicated that customer demands enhanced workers' safety concern when algorithms had more supervision and showed fewer errors. Moreover, higher safety concern and lower financial concern make them show more safety behavior and lower driving speed. Our research sheds light on the role of exogenous influences in safety compliance of gig workers and broadens our knowledge of how they navigate the salient tension between financial needs and safety risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]