The disruptive effect of ridesourcing services on for-hire vehicle drivers' income and employment

摘要

Ridesourcing services provided by Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft are spreading across the United States and are thriving. As a result of TNCs' expansion, there has been concern that ridesourcing is disrupting the traditional for-hire vehicle market, and those drivers are suffering. Based on 12year Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) datasets from 2005 to 2016, we investigate how the income, worker classification, and employment status of for-hire vehicle drivers in the United States had changed after Uber entered their local markets. We find that with the entry of Uber, the hourly wage income of for-hire drivers had decreased, the percentage of self-employed drivers had increased, and the likelihood of being employed had increased in "Uber-adopted" metropolitan areas. The results confirm the disruptive effect of ridesourcing services on the for-hire vehicle industry and its labor force in the United States. The analysis for the five largest metropolitan areas provides more detailed evidence of the effect of ridesourcing.