engleski

Sharing of personal and household services in selected EU countries

Nowadays, digitisation has rapidly expanded a type of sharing widely outside the family, neighbours, or friends, and moved it from the linear to a circular economy. Accordingly, this paper focuses on sharing of personal and household services that people traditionally exchange informally within their close social networks but recently became part of the sharing economy. According to definition of European Commission, personal and household services’(PHS) cover a broad range of activities that contribute to well-being at home of families and individuals like child care, long term care for the elderly and for persons with disabilities, cleaning, remedial classes, home repairs, gardening or ICT support. In addition, sharing of personal and household services may be provided as non-profit or for profit. Nevertheless, such sharing supported by digital platforms tackles formal issues such as taxation, infrastructure, quality requirements, social guarantees, or personal data protection. International social surveys reveal that sharing of personal and household services developed at various levels in various European countries. Main advantages of aforementioned sharing are a variety of supplied services, a convenient way of accessing them, lower prices or even services that are provided free of charge. On the other hand, the main problematic issues identified are lack of the trust in providers of services or in internet transactions in general, disappointment with the quality of personal and household services obtained via digital platforms, or deficiency of information about their supply.

Circular Economy, Digital Platforms, EU countries, Sharing of Personal and Household Services

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