AI algorithms and gendered labor: narratives of female employees in China’s leading digital platform companies

The commercial and operational success of China’s leading digital platforms, such as Douyin and Taobao, relies on two critical elements: AI algorithms that distribute traffic, and a systematic labor division where male-dominated technical positions develop these algorithms while female-dominated operational roles (e.g. content operations, e-commerce, moderation) manage their outcomes. While existing research documents gendered labor division, emotional labor, and labor invisibility in platform organizations, how AI algorithms interact with and intensify these gendered dynamics remains underexplored. Drawing on Acker’s theory of gendered organizations, we analyzed interviews with 37 female employees from seven leading companies, identifying an “algorithm value–driven hierarchical system.” AI algorithms function as gendered structural mediators, integrating patriarchal assumptions, organizational power, and capital demands to marginalize women and reinforce male technical dominance. This system operates through three interconnected aspects: intensified gendered occupational segregation driven by algorithmic value, an alienated form of emotional labor conceptualized as “AI algorithm–mediated emotional labor,” and invisible AI algorithm dual deprivation involving both obscured existing labor and invisible incremental labor. This research extends Acker’s theory to platform organizations that integrate AI algorithms, demonstrating how such integration intensifies gender inequalities while reproducing new forms of gendered labor.