Have you heard of Rapido? It’s that ride-hailing platform that seems to always be in the news for being in trouble with Karnataka law. You may have seen people here or there on Rapido’s bike-taxis.
Of course, since they don’t have doors, it might be natural to clasp onto the driver of the bike, who, most likely, is male. Would it be possible that some women may not be entirely comfortable doing that?
In February 2025, Rapido announced a fleet called “Pink Rapido”, which would be a woman-only bike-taxi service: driven by women for women. The aim is to create 25,000 job opportunities for women. Plus, it might provide a bit more safety and comfort to women passengers. And interestingly, this is one more way to put more women in the driver’s seat: both literally and metaphorically.
Uber had, also, come up with something similar in December 2024. This was a pilot programme aimed at creating a bit more safety for women with an initiative called “Moto Women”, which would be a two-wheeler ride service connecting female riders with female drivers. According to Uber’s announcement, around 70% of bike taxi trips cater to first- and last-mile connectivity, which means a starting point to a public transportation hub and from the public transportation hub to the end destination respectively.
That could mean women in smaller cities might have easier access to gig economies. But, for some reason, has this been working? Have you engaged with these online platforms, like Zomato, Swiggy, Zepto, Amazon, Flipkart and more? How often have you come across a woman gig worker representing the platform you used? It’s probably less than 5 and may even be 0.
In theory, integrating more women into the gig economy workforce sounds fantastic and progressive. More workforce diversity. A bigger labour pool. The platform is seen as diverse and inclusive. It makes for a great press release. And yet, in 2025, it still seems like women make up a super tiny fraction of delivery personnel. It’s estimated that a bit more than 7.5 million of India’s workforce were engaged in the gig economy, as of 2020. But, do women form a tiny sliver of that ecosystem?
A platform called Gigin is optimistic. According to them, roles, like housemaids, HR, customer service representatives and retail salespeople have seen a 300%+ spike in applications from women candidates with about 75% of the increase in female gig workers seen in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi. That might be great, but this may be talking more about women doing more than one job. The findings might be more about spikes in positions that may be more soft-skill-oriented or that don’t require the use of a vehicle.
Beyond those, there are still a lot of jobs in the gig economy that require driving at odd hours or dealing with traffic or venturing into unfamiliar locales. The ones associated with new-age Internet companies. That’s where women seem to be marginalized in the gig economy. Maybe, it’s the mobility-intensive verticals that seem to be a barrier to women in the gig economy. So, do any of these platforms have a foolproof strategy to scale female hiring in last-minute delivery or ride-hailing or others?
In 2021, Zomato outlined that about 0.5% of its delivery partners were women. There was even a goal of reaching a 10% participation by the end of 2021. How is that going a couple of years later? A perfunctory Google Search doesn’t yield any results about following up on that goal. But, a project sure was launched in 2025 to empower women in food delivery through SHGs.
Have there been women-friendly measures introduced like a helpline or an SOS feature to help deal with late nights in secluded areas? Sure, there might be some protective structures, many of them probably well-intentioned, but even if there’s recruitment, are there high dropout rates? Look like these lofty ambitions have had the brakes put on them.
Maybe, what Rapido or Uber is doing might work. It’s a women-catering-to-women approach, which could drastically reduce anxiety for both riders and customers. Though, once the driver drops off the passenger, are there concerns to be dealt with in terms of how the driver gets back? Or are those creases that could be easily ironed?
On International Women’s Day or other tokenistic events, maybe a success story or two will be amplified. A woman in the gig economy supporting her family despite initial resistance and being an aberration to the status quo. They may be outliers.
What would realistic sizeable female participation in India’s gig economy look like? What could tangibly lead to that?
