Research on the Occupational Stigma Perception and Turnover Intention of Informal Employees under the Platform Economy in China

Abstract

In 2018, the International Labor Organization (ILO) released a report stating that there are currently 2 billion practitioners worldwide who were in informal employment, accounting for a total of 61 total employed people. In China, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, by the end of 2021, the flexible employment personnel in China had reached 200 million, and informal employment has become an important form of employment in the country. Takeaway riders and other positions have the characteristics of occupational stigma due to the poor working environment and the lack of perfect labor rights protection. Meanwhile, the nature of the work of these informal employees will increase the great pressure on the them to be controlled by the time and the environment. Based on the combination of social identity theory and motivation theory, the paper presents and verifies the theoretical model of the impact of occupational stigma perception on turnover intention in the platform economy. On the basis of the data from 135 workers, it tests the study hypotheses. The results show that under the platform economy, the occupational stigma perception of informal employees increases the turnover intention, while emotional exhaustion plays an intermediary role, and the sense of work significance negatively regulates the role of emotional exhaustion on the turnover intention.