Women in sports: the experience of working and living in precarity, liminality and exploitation in the gig economy

In the recent years, there has been continuous attention in women’s participation in professional sports (Bowes et al, 2021). Yet, the female athletes continue to experience unique challenges that their male counterparts often do not encounter. Female athletes have struggled for opportunities, recognition, support resources in the field. Despite progress has been made (e.g. in the UK) in increasing visibility, many issues remain as challenges, includes gender discrimination, unequal pay, job precarity and limited access to resources. Exploitation in the gig economy within the sports sector as the result of job instability, temporality and precarity (Roderick, 2006), individual engages in other employment opportunity to manage the day- to- day expense.

Purpose of the project:

The purpose of this project is to explore the experiences of women in the sports industry, focusing on job insecurity, transitional identities and exploitation through the lens of labour process (Gandini, 2019) within the gig economy. This PhD project will assess the impact on female athletes live and wellbeing, the aim is to contribute to equality and diversity in professional sports.

Research questions:

Through the lens of liminal identity, it seeks to understand how the liminality of their identities influences their sense of belonging, self- perception and decision-making process. The project intends to answer the following research question-

Question1: how do female athletes navigate and manage precarious nature of their sports career through identity work?

Question 2: what strategy does individual employ to cope and manage with the constant change (job security and instability) of their wellbeing?

Question 3: How does labour exploitation manifest among female athletes in the gig economy within the sports sector?

Contribution:

This PhD project intends to make contributions to knowledge and to practice. Contribution to knowledge is aimed to engage the EDI dialogue by explore the evidence of gig economy and its impact on wellbeing through the lens of labour processes (Gandini, 2019) in contemporary contexts. In terms of contribution to practice, the project seeks to identify and propose adequate support resources in bridging the EDI gap in professional sports, offer policy recommendations to support women in professional sports, aiming to create a more inclusive environment.

Suggested reading:

Bowes, A., Lomax, L., and Piasecki, J (2021), A losing battle? Women’s sport pre- and post- COVID-19. European Sport Management Quarterly. 21 (3): 443- 461.

Gandini, A (2019) Labour process theory and the gig economy, Human Relations, 72 (6): 1039- 1056.

Roderick, M (2006) A very precarious profession: uncertainty in the working lives of professional footballers, Work, Employment and Society, 20(2): 245- 265.

MSc in business, management or other social science discipline relevant to the topic. Qualitative methodological skills.

This is a self-funded PhD project for UK and International applicants.