Gig Economies: Past, Present, and Future
HISTSCI 1957
Subject & Catalog Number
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Course Information
Description
This course explores how and why “gig work” — featuring flexible, short-term agreements and few of the benefits or protections associated with formal employment — has become so pervasive, with harmful consequences for workers and societies alike. We will examine how unions and federal labor law sought to redress precarity in the early twentieth century; the emergence of early gig-like arrangements like direct selling, multi-level marketing, and franchising; the role of digital technologies in both expanding access to gig work and surveilling gig workers; the possible effects of the AI boom on the gig economy; and labor organizing by gig workers today.
School
Faculty of Arts & Sciences
Credits
4
Cross Reg
Available for Harvard Cross Registration
Department
History of Science
Course Component
Seminar
Subject
History of Science
Grading Basis
FAS Letter Graded
General Education
N/A
Quantitative Reasoning with Data
N/A
Divisional Distribution
Social Sciences
Course Level
For Undergraduate and Graduate Students
