Bonded to the algorithm: how ratings shape platform-based domestic work in India

This research examines how the platformisation of domestic work in India reshapes labour relations and contributes to new forms of unfreedom. As gig economy platforms expand into home services, labour is increasingly mediated through algorithmic systems that structure access to work, performance assessment, and remuneration. In particular, this contribution focuses on how customer ratings and reviews emerge as key instruments of control, shaping workers' visibility, disciplining performance, and determining continued access to employment.

The research is based on preliminary findings from fieldwork conducted in Bengaluru India between September 2025 and August 2026, including semi-structured interviews with app-based domestic workers and companies and textual analysis of platform companies' terms and conditions. Using Bengaluru as a case study, a city marked by high levels of migration, informality, and rapid digital adoption, the research investigates how algorithmic management influences experiences of coercion, constraint, and exploitation among women domestic worker.

Emerging findings indicate that algorithmic management—particularly through rating systems—plays a central role in structuring workers' autonomy and vulnerability. Ratings are tied to both incentives (such as monetary rewards, access to health insurance, and credit opportunities) and penalties (including reduced job allocation, financial sanctions, retraining requirements, and account deactivation). As ratings are influenced not only by service quality but also by metrics such as punctuality, cancellations, and availability, workers experience constant pressure to remain compliant and responsive. In home service settings, where interactions with clients are more intimate and less regulated, workers often face demands beyond their contractual roles. The risk of negative ratings discourages refusal, even in cases involving unpaid, unsafe, or inappropriate tasks. Consequently, workers' ability to negotiate terms, resist exploitation, or report abuse is significantly constrained.

The study demonstrates that platformisation does not eliminate traditional forms of labour exploitation but reconfigures them through digital mechanisms of control, such as rating systems. Algorithmic systems extend and intensify existing inequalities, particularly along gendered and socio-economic lines, producing new forms of unfreedom within ostensibly flexible work arrangements. By highlighting the lived realities of women in platform-mediated domestic work, this research underscores the need to reconceptualise labour exploitation in the digital economy and to incorporate feminist perspectives into debates on platform governance and regulation in the Global South.