Understanding Online Freelancers' Labour Agency at the Intersection of Platforms, Wider Labour Markets, and Households: Evidence From the Philippines

ABSTRACT Research on the labour agency of remote‐based online freelancers has often struggled to account for the interplay between platform dynamics, broader labour market conditions, and gendered household responsibilities. This article addresses this gap by proposing an integrated analytical framework that synthesises these dimensions to examine how freelancers exercise their labour agency in choosing between different online jobs—decisions which are vital to their platform success. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with 25 Filipino freelancers, the findings show that freelancers exercise their agency by employing two overarching strategies: optimising their financial and temporal resources. These strategies are shaped by platform logics, as well as by constraints and opportunities linked to freelancers' wider labour market position and private‐sphere responsibilities. The discussion demonstrates the framework's analytical value by illustrating how these strategies produce uneven implications for freelancers' longer‐term platform trajectories, adding nuance to debates about the uneven gains of remote platform work.