Platform Labour as a Stepping Stone? Challenging the Dominant Narrative for Danish Housecleaning Platforms

Abstract

This article problematises the invocation of the stepping stone hypothesis for platform labour by Danish policymakers, namely the argument that digital labour platforms facilitate transitioning to typical employment, especially for groups of vulnerable workers. Tracing the origins of the stepping stone hypothesis back to the international literature on temporary work agencies and workfare policies triggered by neoliberal policy shifts, the article explores the ideological underpinning of the hypothesis in the Danish context, as Danish policymakers invoked it without possessing relevant data. This article questions the stepping stone narrative drawing on policy document analysis and expert interviews, but also on interviews with platform housecleaners, whose backgrounds, experiences, and aspirations indicate that they do not perceive platform labour as a stepping stone. Early Danish research on platform labour has not been premised on the workers’ perspectives. We claim that policymakers’ positive depiction of platform labour serves towards social and institutional stabilisation of technoprecarious – migrant – labour as a desired and inescapable future of work within the Danish labour market.