Over the past two years, research shows that earning opportunities for Australian women have disproportionately been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In conjunction, women represent a small portion of driver-partners across the transport industry. 

As a platform that offers a flexible earning avenue that partners can tailor around their life, Uber wants to help to unlock some of the barriers preventing some Australian women and non-binary individuals from accessing flexible earnings, while supporting women and non-binary driver-partners in amplifying their current earning opportunities.

That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of Women Rider Preference, a new feature that allows women and non-binary driver-partners to indicate a preference for picking up women riders. 

Accessible via the Uber Driver app, driver-partners across Australia who identify as a woman or non-binary individual, will automatically gain access to the feature from today and can turn it on or off whenever they choose.

Not only will this feature provide women and non-binary driver-partners with more choice over the rides they accept, but it can provide them with more confidence to choose to drive during optimum earning hours of day, such as in the evening.

Launched in response to demand from Australian driver-partners, this feature has already had a meaningful impact in Latin America, contributing to 15 million earning opportunities for women and a 40% increase in active women drivers in Mexico since its launch.

Emma Foley, Director of Driver and Marketplace, for Uber Australia, said: “Women that earn with the Uber app do so because it enables them to be their own boss and earn flexibly around their lifestyle. Women Rider Preference has the potential to allow more women and non-binary individuals to sign up to drive when they otherwise might not have and amplify existing female driver-partners’ earning opportunities, which is more important now than ever.”

We believe that the Uber platform should reflect the diversity of the communities we operate in. We hope that by helping women and non-binary individuals unlock more earning opportunities with Women Rider Preference, we can help contribute to more equitable gender representation, not only across the Uber platform driver-partner base but across the entire point to point transport sector. 

To learn more about the Women Rider Preference feature or how to sign up to drive with Uber, please visit https://www.uber.com/blog/women-rider-preference/.

 

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