Multifaceted Disparities Associated with Translator Earnings: A Quantitative Study of Upwork Profiles
Abstract
This study aims to quantitatively explore the multifaceted determinants that influence earnings in the translation industry. Using a dataset comprising 45 000 translator profiles, the study focusses on delineating disparities correlated with demographic variables such as age, gender, home country wealth, and language pairs. The study uses a random forest regression model to delineate the complex interaction between gender, the economic standing of a translator’s domicile country, age, and linguistic proficiency, as they relate to earnings. Our findings substantiate and, in many ways, extend existing qualitative and anecdotal evidence that has shaped the discourse in this sector. The rigorous empirical framework employed here can be replicated or adapted to study other sectors within the gig economy, thus contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of labour dynamics in the digital age.
References
D. La Penna and S. Sullam, Introduction: Literary exchanges between the Italian and anglo-american publishing markets: Readers, translators, mediators (1945–1970), Italianist, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 339–347, 2021.
E. Alangari, Cultural mediation in tourism translation: Saudi Arabia as a case study, Arab World Engl. J. Transl. Lit. Stud., vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 82–98, 2022.
S. A. Shirinzadeh and T. S. T. Mahadi, Translators as cultural mediators in transmitting cultural differences, Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci., vol. 208, pp. 167–174, 2015.
F. Malik, R. Heeks, S. Masiero, and B. Nicholson, Digital platform labour in Pakistan: Institutional voids and solidarity networks, Information Technology & People, vol. 34, no. 7, pp. 1819–1839, 2021.
E. Foong, N. Vincent, B. Hecht, and Gerber E. M, Women (still) ask for less: Gender differences in hourly rate in an online labor marketplace, Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact., vol. 2, no. CSCW, pp. 1–21, 2018.
S. Tashiro and S. Choi, Labor market outcomes under digital platform business models in the sharing economy: The case of the taxi services industry, Bus. Econ., vol. 56, no. 4, pp. 240–251, 2021.
E. Kocher, Reshaping the legal categories of work: Digital labor platforms at the borders of labor law, Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society, vol. 1, no. 1, p. w1.1.2, 2021.
H. Låndqvist, Gender equality and/or inequality? Female and male translators in a Swedish digital encyclopaedia of translators, STRIDON: Journal of Studies in Translation and Interpreting, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 93–114, 2023.
R. Sela-Sheffy, Elite and non-elite translator manpower: The non-professionalised culture in the translation field in Israel, The Journal of Specialised Translation, vol. 25, pp. 54–73, 2016.
M. Inghilleri, The sociology of bourdieu and the construction of the ‘object’ in translation and interpreting studies, The Translator, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 125–145, 2005.
H. Buzelin, Unexpected allies, The Translator, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 193–218, 2005.
S. Tyulenev, Translating in the public sphere: Birth pangs of a developing democracy in today’s Russia, South. Afr. Linguist. Appl. Lang. Stud., vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 469–479, 2013.
F. Fernández, Assessing masculine domination in a cultural field: Women translators and book translation awards in Spain (1984–2012), The Translator, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 162–177, 2014.
F. D. Blau and L. M. Kahn, The gender wage gap: Extent, trends, and explanations, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 789–865, 2017.
J. J. Heckman, A life-cycle model of earnings, learning, and consumption, J. Polit. Econ, vol. 84, no. 4, pp. S9–S44, 1976.
V. De Stefano, The rise of the “just-intime workforce”: On-demand work, crowdwork, and labor protection in the “gig-economy”, Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 471–504, 2016.
T. Horan and I. Bullen-Smith, Online ranking system effects on perceived fairness: Gender, income and education, Journal of Social Media in Society, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 44–61, 2023.
T. Horan, Meeting up together: Economic embeddedness of social capital in America, Soc. Sci., vol. 11, no. 4, p. 158, 2022.
A. R. Barzilay and A. Ben-David, Platform inequality: Gender in the gig-economy, Seton Hall Law Review, vol. 47, no. 2, p. 393, 2017.
J. Heilbron, Towards a sociology of translation: Book translations as a cultural world system, European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 429–444, 1999.
T. Horan, The effects of urbanization and social media use on individuals’ perceived social isolation, Online J. Commun. Medium. Technol., vol. 14, no. 1, p. e202411, 2024.
K. K. Zethsen and I. Askehave, Talking translation: Is gender an issue? Gend. Lang., vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 117–134, 2013.
L. Breiman, Random forests, Mach. Learn., vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 5–32, 2001.
A. Liaw and M. Wiener, Classification and regression by random forest, R News, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 18–22, 2002.
B. Mittelstadt, Ethics of the health-related Internet of Things: A narrative review, Ethics Inf. Technol., vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 157–175, 2017.
A. J. Wood, M. Graham, V. Lehdonvirta, and I. Hjorth, Good gig, bad gig: Autonomy and algorithmic control in the global gig economy, Work. Employ. Soc., vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 56–75, 2019.
A. Klevmarken and J. M. Quigley, Age, experience, earnings, and investments in human capital, J. Polit. Econ., vol. 84, no. 1, pp. 47–72, 1976.
京公网安备11010802044758号