Written by Utkarsh Singh,
CMP Degree College, University of Allahabad,
July 2026
Introduction
India’s gig economy has expanded at a remarkable pace, absorbing millions of workers into roles ranging from ride-hailing and food delivery to home services and e-commerce logistics. NITI Aayog has projected that the gig workforce will grow to over twenty-three million workers by 2029-30,[1] with women forming an increasingly visible segment of this workforce, particularly in beauty services, home-based delivery, and care-based platform work.[2] Yet, as this workforce expands, one critical gap remains unaddressed: maternity protection. India’s existing labour law framework, built around the employer-employee relationship of the traditional industrial economy, simply does not extend its protective architecture to women engaged through digital platforms. This blog explores the issue, looks at its legal basis, and demands immediate legislation to make India’s labor laws suitable to the modern-day reality of platform work.
Statutory Regime and Its Inadequacies
The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, remains India’s primary legislative instrument for maternity protection.[3] It guarantees paid maternity leave, medical bonus, and protection against dismissal during pregnancy,[4] but its applicability is explicitly tied to “establishments” employing women in a conventional employer-employee relationship, with coverage thresholds based on the number of employees.[5] Gig and platform workers, by contrast, are typically classified by platforms as “independent contractors” or “partners” rather than employees. This classification, while legally contested,[6] has the practical effect of placing gig workers outside the scope of the Act altogether. A woman working full-time hours for a food delivery or ride-hailing platform may, in economic substance, resemble a regular employee, but in legal form, she remains excluded from any statutory entitlement to maternity leave, wage protection during pregnancy, or job security upon return to work.
The Code on Social Security, 2020, was expected to bridge this gap.[7] It introduced, for the first time, statutory definitions of “gig worker” and “platform worker,”[8] and contemplated welfare schemes funded through contributions from aggregators, the central government, and state governments.[9] This was a meaningful conceptual shift, acknowledging that gig work exists in a regulatory space distinct from both traditional employment and pure self-employment. However, the Code’s promise remains largely unrealised. It does not guarantee maternity benefits as a matter of right; instead, it leaves the design of welfare schemes, including any maternity-related provisions, to delegated legislation and scheme notifications that are yet to be substantively framed and implemented in most states.[10] The result is a statutory shell without operative content insofar as maternity protection is concerned.
The Practical Consequences
The absence of maternity protection has tangible consequences for women in the gig economy. Platform work is typically structured around payment-per-task or payment-per-trip models, meaning that any period of absence, whether for childbirth, recovery, or childcare, translates directly into loss of income, with no statutory entitlement to compensate for it. There is no guaranteed right to return to the same work arrangement, no protection against deactivation or de-prioritisation by the platform’s algorithm during or after pregnancy, and no employer-sponsored health benefits comparable to those available to organised-sector employees. Several platforms have introduced limited, discretionary welfare measures, such as insurance cover or temporary support funds,[11] but these are corporate policy choices rather than enforceable legal rights, and they vary significantly across platforms and can be withdrawn or modified unilaterally.
This regulatory vacuum disproportionately affects women’s participation in the gig economy. Where formal protections are absent, women face a structural disincentive to enter or remain in platform-based work during their reproductive years, reinforcing patterns of economic precarity that labour law has historically sought to correct. The irony is stark: a sector frequently marketed as offering “flexibility” and economic empowerment to women in fact denies them one of the most basic protections that the broader formal economy has recognised as essential for over six decades.
Comparative and Judicial Signals
India is not alone in grappling with this question, and comparative experience offers some direction. The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court, in its landmark ruling concerning ride-hailing drivers,[12] recognised platform workers as “workers” entitled to certain statutory protections, distinct from full employees but still within the protective ambit of labour law,[13] a middle category that Indian law has only partially begun to contemplate through the Code’s “gig worker” definition. The European Union’s Platform Work Directive likewise reflects a growing international consensus that algorithmic management and platform-mediated work require bespoke regulatory categories rather than a binary employee-contractor classification.[14]
Domestically, Indian courts have occasionally signalled sympathy for extending protective principles to non-traditional work arrangements, recognising that the substance of the working relationship, rather than its contractual label, should guide the application of welfare legislation.[15]
However, no binding precedent has yet directly addressed maternity protection for gig workers, leaving the matter largely in the realm of policy rather than enforceable right.
The Way Forward
Bridging this gap requires action on at least three fronts. First, the Code on Social Security’s welfare scheme provisions for gig and platform workers must be operationalised with explicit, time-bound maternity benefit components, rather than left to indefinite scheme notification. A defined contribution mechanism, drawing from aggregators in proportion to their platform’s worker base, alongside government contribution, would create a sustainable funding model without disproportionately burdening any single stakeholder. Second, regulatory clarity is needed on the classification question itself; an intermediate statutory category, akin to the “worker” classification recognised in the United Kingdom, would allow gig workers to access targeted protections, including maternity benefits, without disturbing the broader independent-contractor framework that underpins platform business models. Third, platforms themselves should be encouraged, through regulatory incentive structures, to adopt transparent, portable maternity benefit policies that travel with the worker across platforms, recognising that many gig workers engage with multiple platforms simultaneously or sequentially.
Conclusion
The growth of India’s gig economy has outpaced the evolution of its labour law framework, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the absence of maternity protection for women engaged in platform work. The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, was designed for a different economic era, and the Code on Social Security, 2020, while conceptually progressive, has yet to translate its promise into enforceable entitlement. As India’s policymakers continue to debate the contours of gig worker welfare, maternity protection must be treated not as a peripheral concern but as a central test of whether the country’s labour law framework can genuinely adapt to the realities of twenty-first century work. Until that link is forged, the promise of the gig economy will remain, for many women, an opportunity built on an unprotected foundation.
References
[1] NITI Aayog, India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy: Perspectives and Recommendations on the Future of Work 1 (June 2022) (projecting growth to 23.5 million workers by 2029–30, a near 200% increase from 7.7 million).
[2] See NITI Aayog, supra note 1 (noting low female labour force participation nationally and the concentration of women in select platform-based service categories).
[3] The Maternity Benefit Act, No. 53 of 1961, India Code.
[4] The Maternity Benefit Act, No. 53 of 1961, §§ 5, 12, India Code.
[5] The Maternity Benefit Act, No. 53 of 1961, § 2, India Code.
[6] Cf. Workmen of Nilgiri Coop. Mkt. Soc’y Ltd. v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2004) 3 SCC 514 (India) (applying a substance-over-form test to determine employment status for purposes of welfare legislation).
[7] The Code on Social Security, No. 36 of 2020, India Code.
[8] The Code on Social Security, No. 36 of 2020, § 2(35), (61), India Code.
[9] The Code on Social Security, No. 36 of 2020, § 114, India Code.
[10] See V.V. Giri Nat’l Labour Inst., FAQ on the Code on Social Security, 2020 (noting the dependence of welfare scheme implementation on State-level rule notification, much of which remained pending as of publication).
[11] See generally International Labour Organization, Extension of Social Protection to Gig and Platform Workers in India (project overview) (describing the absence of binding statutory social-security frameworks for location-based platform workers and the resulting reliance on voluntary, platform-specific welfare measures).
[12] Uber BV v. Aslam [2021] UKSC 5.
[13] Employment Rights Act 1996, c. 18, § 230(3)(b) (UK) (defining the intermediate “worker” status applied in Aslam).
[14] Directive (EU) 2024/2831 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2024 on Improving Working Conditions in Platform Work, 2024 O.J. (L) 2831 (entered into force Dec. 1, 2024).
[15] Cf. Workmen of Nilgiri Coop. Mkt. Soc’y Ltd. v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2004) 3 SCC 514 (India).