Should I ‘Go Live’? Gendered Differences in Cultural Production Online

• In Event: Labor and Technology: Platforms, AI, and Inequalities

Abstract

Social science on platform inequality often focuses on outcomes (e.g., pay gaps), overlooking the unequal pre-production labor determining participation itself. This paper argues that creators must first overcome a gendered participation gap, which functions as a structural gatekeeping mechanism. We use live streaming on YouTube – a high-stakes, real-time form of cultural production – as a critical case to quantify this barrier, drawing on survey responses from a larger survey of creators (n= 38,939) who opt not to live stream (n=19,902). The analysis reveals a "Triple Cost" hierarchy for women and non-binary creators. Women face a persistent, identity-based "social tax": they are 1.79 times more likely than men to cite worry about harassment, a barrier that remains robust across content genres. Non-binary creators face an even higher social and emotional burden. Critically, multivariate analysis demonstrates that the gender gap for women in technical knowledge and performance anxiety disappears once genre and age are controlled for, suggesting the participation gap is rooted in social friction, not skill deficits. By contrast, men’s primary deterrents align with calculative economic and practical costs. This disparity creates a "rationality gap": women’s decisions are crowded out by questions of safety and access, while men’s are framed by economic questions of value and work. We contribute a novel quantitative mechanism of techno-social reproduction in the cultural industries, where anticipated audience behavior acts as a gendered gatekeeper, and conclude by discussing mitigation through platform-level socio-technical mediation.

Author

• Matt Rafalow, Google