Eve is here. It’s painful to have to take seriously the idea that exploitative gig work can still be profitable. However, this article presents data that shows it is a preferred revenue-generating strategy for crime. This also means that misdemeanors are less expensive on a risk-adjusted basis.
Written by Hugo Allouard, Grazia Cecere, Jose De Sousa, Professor of Economics, Panthéon Assus, Paris II, Olivier Marie, Professor of Labor Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Ines Picard, Professor of Labor Economics at Maastricht University. Originally published on VoxEU
Food delivery platforms lower barriers to legal process for disadvantaged groups. This column uses the gradual rollout of Deliveroo and Uber Eats across France as an example to show how expanding access to legal income for such groups can reduce crime, even if the work is temporary, flexible and low-paid. The policy goal should be to link accessible entry-level jobs with skills development and pathways to stable employment.
In June 2019, the New York Times reported on French food delivery workers (Alderman 2019). Many of them were young immigrants, and platform work provided a rare foothold in the labor market. One immigrant summed up the sentiments of many when he said, “Riding a bicycle, even in precarious conditions, was better than nefarious ways to make money, like selling drugs.” This captures an insight at the heart of the economics of crime. The availability of legal procedures means that the opportunity cost of crime increases (Becker 1968). The question is whether this logic holds true at scale, and whether delivery gig platforms can expand access to legal income for those most at risk of criminal activity.
A recent paper (Allouard et al. 2025) provides causal evidence regarding this question. Just 15 years ago, platform-based gig work almost didn’t exist. By 2021, an estimated 4.9 million people in the United States (Garin et al. 2023) and 4.1 million people in the EU 1 will rely on gig work as their main source of income, with food delivery accounting for the majority of these jobs.
Platform jobs offer flexible schedules with very low barriers to entry (Mas and Pallais 2017), making them more accessible to groups excluded from traditional employment (Burtch et al. 2018, Laitenberger et al. 2023). Young people with limited qualifications, immigrants facing discrimination (Bréda et al. 2021), and individuals with minor criminal records are most likely to work in delivery jobs and are most represented in crime statistics (Hjalmarsson et al. 2024, Marie and Pinotti 2024).
We take advantage of the gradual rollout of Deliveroo and Uber Eats across France between 2015 and 2019 to estimate the causal effects of platform entry on local labor markets and crime. We also identify which groups are driving the adoption of gig work and the resulting changes in criminal behavior.
Why gig work can reduce crime
Two economic mechanisms link access to gig work to reduced criminal activity. The first is income replacement. In Becker’s (1968) classic framework, individuals weigh legal income against expected profits from crime. A large empirical literature confirms that better employment opportunities reduce crime (Hjalmarsson et al. 2024). Gig jobs, which require no resume, qualifications, or work history and are easily accessible, increase the opportunity cost of crime. Conversely, when discrimination and criminal records limit access to employment, both labor market exclusion and criminal involvement can persist (Kline et al. 2022, Cullen et al. 2023).
The second mechanism is neutralization. The time spent making deliveries is concentrated in the evenings and weekends when crime rates are at their peak, leaving no time for situations that increase crime risk. This mechanism reflects evidence that the use of structured time reduces crime more broadly (Jacob and Lefgren 2003).
Importantly, neither mechanism requires complete activation of the labor market. Engagement in even partial and irregular delivery tasks can change the way people spend their time and increase the relative attractiveness of legal income, made possible by the flexible, on-demand nature of gig delivery (Hall and Krueger 2018, Chen et al. 2019).
Both mechanisms predict concentrated declines in specific crime types, such as through income substitution in drug trafficking, opportunistic theft, vandalism, and violence, allowing us to test channels as well as overall effects.
French natural experiment
France provides a clear environment for identifying causality of platform entry. Deliveroo and Uber Eats launched in France in 2015 and have gradually expanded. Platforms operated in 11 police jurisdictions in 2015, 39 in 2017, and 233 by 2019 (Figure 1, panel a). Because this geographic development does not reflect pre-existing differences in crime or unemployment trends, causal relationships can be identified by comparing areas that received early treatment with areas that were untreated or untreated.
Figure 1 Platform introduction and food delivery workers in France
a) Platform deployment by year and police jurisdiction, 2015-2019
b) New registrations (solid red line) and active riders (dashed blue line), 2012-19.
Note: Panel a shows the main food delivery platforms rolled out in stages across France from 2015 to 2019, aggregated at police jurisdiction level. Red indicates the first year of platform entry. Panel b shows the annual number of food delivery workers. The dashed line shows the number of new registrations (annual inflow of newly registered riders). The solid line reports the inventory of active riders (microenterprises declared to have positive sales in at least one of the past two years). The vertical dashed line indicates platform entry in 2015.
As Figure 1 panel b shows, the effect on the number of riders was immediate and large. The number of active riders increased from almost zero in 2014 to about 120,000 by 2019. Individual-level data from public business registration records provides insight into rider characteristics. They are overwhelmingly young men. Approximately one-third were born abroad. And of the two-thirds born in France, almost half have non-European names. These are precisely the groups that face the steepest barriers in the traditional labor market.
Labor market adjustment
Our estimates confirm that platform entry has led to a sharp rise in the number of couriers signing up, with the majority concentrated among men, with approximately 62 additional signups per 10,000 men. For men, the foreign-born responded twice as strongly as the French-born, reflecting the severe barriers immigrants face in traditional employment. This differentiation is key to our identification. If platforms influence crime through labor market channels, the effect should be greatest among precisely these groups.
The total unemployment and inactivity rates do not change significantly after entry into the platform. This shock is too targeted to move population-wide indicators. But when you look at groups working on delivery jobs, the picture becomes clear. The unemployment rate for men decreases by approximately 1.5% after entering Japan. The most striking results were for male migrants, whose inactivity rates fell by nearly 9%. This decline is consistent with the platform pulling men out of inactivity rather than registered unemployment. For many immigrant men, rider work is the first stepping stone to formal employment.
I don’t see any transfers from other low-wage sectors either. Employment in restaurants and supermarkets has not declined, eliminating concerns that the platforms are simply replacing precarious work with another form.
Crime happens – but only when theory predicts it.
Figure 2 shows the impact of platform entry on four categories of crime. The pattern of effects is consistent with our theoretical mechanism.
After entering the platform, overall recorded crime decreased by approximately 3% and violence against individuals decreased by nearly 7%. The biggest declines were in vandalism and vandalism (-15%, panel a) and drug crimes (-15%, panel b). The reduction in vandalism is particularly consistent with the neutralization channel. These crimes are disproportionately committed by adolescents and young adults and tend to be concentrated during evening and weekend hours, when delivery shifts occupy. Reductions in drug crime are more closely related to income replacement. Work on the platform provides a legal and accessible alternative to lower-level trade for individuals who face barriers to formal employment.
Figure 2 Impact of platform intrusions on crime
Note: Event study estimates of the impact of platform entry on annual crime rates across French police jurisdictions for individuals aged 15-54. The vertical dashed line indicates the year of platform entry. The percentage change after entry is shown at the bottom of each panel. For technical details, see Allouard et al. (2025).
Differentiating property crimes by skill intensity further sharpens the picture. Low-skill property crimes, such as shoplifting and street robbery, which are least planned and most common among individuals without a steady income, fell by about 10% (panel c). In contrast, highly skilled property crimes such as robbery and vehicle theft require experience, networks, and higher fixed costs and show no detectable effect (panel d). Access to the platform changes behavior at the threshold of entry-level criminal activity, rather than specialized crime.
What rules out alternative explanations?
A legitimate concern about our identity verification is that platforms don’t just break in at random. They target regions with larger markets and more economic vitality. Entry may therefore coincide with local economic improvement, which would reduce crime in any case. Pre-entry trends in crime and labor market outcomes are roughly flat across all groups, which is reassuring but does not completely rule out fortuitous entry into regions on the cusp of the boom.
Two tests provide stronger evidence. First, they abuse the legal minimum age of 18 for delivery work. If crime is reduced because of access to the platform, the reduction should only apply to those who qualify to become passengers. Broader economic trends will affect all age groups equally. Using court records to determine the ages of offenders, we find that the decline is entirely concentrated among adults, with no effect on minors. Second, if we exclude the three largest cities, Paris, Marseille, and Lyon, and keep the suburban commuting zones where most passengers live, the results remain the same. Together, these tests provide a clear indication of platform access as a driver.
Policy implications
Our findings show that expanding access to legal income for disadvantaged groups can reduce crime, even when work is temporary, flexible, and low-paid. This is directly related to the debate over the EU Platform Labor Directive, adopted in 2024, which extends employment protection to gig workers.
The goal of greater stability is welcome. But reforms need to preserve what makes delivery platforms valuable to the most disadvantaged workers: non-discriminatory, low-barrier employment (no resumes, no interviews, no language tests). If stricter regulations raise testing costs, platforms could become more selective and close the door to the workers who would benefit most. The challenge is to expand rights without introducing the discriminatory filters of the traditional labor market.
The long-term question is whether these jobs are true gateways to stable employment or dead ends. Either way, the short-term gains are real. But the early evidence is sobering. The labor market benefits of gig experience are much weaker than traditional jobs, with little progress, especially for workers with immigrant-derived names (the group most likely to take delivery jobs) (Adermon and Hensvik 2022). Evidence regarding refugees points in the same direction (Degenhardt and Nimczik 2025).
The policy goal should be to link accessible entry-level jobs with skills development and pathways to stable employment. Whether gig platforms can become true gateways rather than revolving doors is one of the most important unresolved questions in labor market integration policy.
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