THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Graduates make up the biggest portion of food delivery riders in Kochi, while nearly half are the primary breadwinners of their families, a new study has found.
Close to 60% of Kochi’s food delivery riders possess a degree or higher qualification, and nearly 90% have studied at least up to higher secondary, said the study ‘Intra State Migration and Labour Market Entry in the Platform Economy: Evidence from Food Delivery Workers in Kochi, Keralam’ by Unnimaya U G, a research scholar at the Madras Institute of Development Studies.
The study, a part of Unnimaya’s PhD thesis, surveyed 271 delivery workers at major delivery hotspots in Kochi between September 2023 and February 2024. It was published in Kerala Economy, the journal of the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation (GIFT).
The findings revealed that for two-thirds (66.4%) of the workers surveyed, gig work was the only source of income. As many as 47.6% workers were the main breadwinners of their household. As for earnings, more than half (52.4%) made over `20,000 a month from deliveries and 27% made above `25,000. The rest earned up to `20,000.
The figures come against the backdrop of Keralam’s large pool of educated job seekers. The state’s employment exchanges had 4.05 lakh undergraduate and postgraduate degree holders on the registers, out of 22.98 lakh aspirants, according to the Economic Review 2025 from the State Planning Board.
Of the 271 riders surveyed, 64.1% belonged to Other Backward Classes. As many as 24.8% belonged to the General category, while 11.1% belonged to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes category.
As many as 61% of the workers surveyed said they moved to Kochi from other parts of Kerala. Of them, 49.7% took up delivery work less than six months ago. Only 12.7% said they have stayed on for two years or more, against 34% of native riders.
The study described platform work as an easy entry point into urban employment for migrants. It recommended that social protection, occupational safety measures and grievance redress mechanisms reach workers from the early stages of platform work.