Institutional Balancing Mechanisms between Labor Flexibility and Workers’ Rights Protection in the Platform Economy

Abstract

The rise of platform-based employment has reshaped labor allocation and relational structures by enhancing flexibility while challenging rights protection systems built on stable labor relations. Using flexicurity, institutional balancing, and reregulation as the analytical framework, this study applies qualitative methods to examine the institutional tensions and balancing mechanisms between flexibility and protection in platform labor. The findings indicate that ambiguous labor identity, insufficient social insurance coverage, asymmetries in algorithmic governance and responsibility, and weak organizational capacity are the core dilemmas. To address these issues, the study proposes a multi-dimensional mechanism encompassing legal regulation, social security, platform responsibility, and worker organization, highlighting rule coordination and rights–responsibility matching as pathways to dynamic balance and offering theoretical and policy implications for platform labor governance.