Investigating social protection amongst platform workers in Germany: forced individualisation, hybrid income generation and undesired regulation

Abstract The social protection of platform workers is considered one of the most precarious features and political challenges of this new form of employment. Still, there have only been a few empirical investigations on this issue to date. This article presents an explorative empirical analysis of the social protection of platform workers in Germany – a conservative welfare regime with a strong link between standard employment and institutionalised social protection. On the basis of an online survey amongst 719 self-employed platform workers, we examine how different employment patterns correspond to institutionalised protection against sickness and old age. We empirically explore different protection types and analyse how they differ regarding working conditions in platform work and individual social policy preferences. Findings reveal that conditions of platform work and social protection as well as demands and regulatory preferences vary notably across different clusters of platform workers. Still, the vast majority votes against obligatory social insurances for platform workers and favours self-employment over dependent employment. Against this background, we discuss challenges for future attempts aiming at improving social protection for platform workers. This study adds to the literature by empirically exploring platform workers’ social protection and social policy preferences, which have been overlooked to date.