[URBAN NOTE] "Uber’s Rise Draws a Big Boost in Number of Female Cab Drivers"

[rfmcdonald]

Torontoist's Arielle Piat-Sauvé writes about Uber's relative success in recruiting female drivers, certainly in comparison to the established taxi industries.

Esther Nerling is the UberX Queen of Toronto.

On most Saturday nights, the 60-year-old drives her black Volkswagen Jetta around the GTA, picking up customers through the ride-sharing app Uber.

Nerling, a former RBC banker who joined Uber back in 2014, says the flexible hours immediately attracted her to the job. Initially the gig was a way for Nerling to make extra money and help her pay for her daughter’s Master’s degree, but it has now become her primary source of income. She earns between $29 and $36 an hour and often finds herself driving until 4 a.m.

[. . .]

Nerling is part of a growing Uber trend. In Toronto, the company now boasts about 2,200 female drivers—a big jump from 1,200 in October 2015—and is recruiting more. Nationwide, Uber counts a total of 22,000 active drivers (male and female), and that number continues to grow.

“What we’re hearing from female driver partners is that they feel safe driving because of the features built into the app,” says Susie Heath, a spokesperson for Uber Canada. “Every ride is tracked by GPS, they know who is getting into their car, and there’s no cash exchanged.”

As part of its efforts to encourage more women to become drivers, last year Uber pledged to create job opportunities for one million women worldwide (the company currently operates in more than 360 cities and 60 countries). Recent numbers in the U.S. also show an increase in female drivers. According to survey paid for by Uber and administered by Benenson Strategy Group [PDF], 29 per cent of Uber drivers who started in the past three months were women and 19 per cent of all current Uber drivers in the U.S. are women, up from 14 per cent in December 2014.

Meanwhile, the traditional taxi industry in Canada remains predominantly male. Data from the 2006 long-form census found that 85 per cent of taxi drivers in Canada are men. A recent Toronto Star article suggests there are about 100 female taxi drivers in the city. But Beck Taxi, Uber’s prime competitor, has a meagre six drivers who are female working in Toronto.