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Grab Women Driver-Partners Programme: Closing the Gender Gap in Southeast Asia's Ride-Hailing Economy

Singapore · Singapore · See the Singapore profile

Grab's Women Driver-Partners Programme spans six SE Asian countries with gender-matching and safety training. A 42,000-respondent study (UNGCNS & Kantar) found 86% report higher financial independence; Grab targets 300,000 women/PWD partners earning by 2030, vs 135,000 in 2024.

~42%
Women's share of the regional ride-hailing/delivery gig workforce
135,000
Active women & PWD driver-partners earning through the platform (2024)
300,000
Public target for women/PWD driver-partners (by 2030 (target announced March 2024))
more than doubled to 5,140
Active PWD driver-partners (2021–2024)
more than half
Women driver-partners who activated 'Women Passengers Preferred' feature (as of December 2024)
1.35-fold
Increase in woman-to-woman matches after feature activation
42,000
Survey respondents ('Women in the Driver's Seat' study) (published March 2026)
86%
Women driver-partners reporting increased financial independence
80%
Women driver-partners reporting higher quality of life
22% 2.4x the rate reported by men
Women with no active income before joining platform work
~US$0.8 billion
Estimated economic output generated by women driver-partners in SE Asia (2025)
Grab Women Driver-Partners Programme: Closing the Gender Gap in Southeast Asia's Ride-Hailing Economy

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Grab Holdings Limited
Period
2019-present (2030 target announced 2024)
Keywords
gig economy, ride-hailing, food & parcel delivery, women's economic inclusion, disability inclusion

Context

Since around 2019, and expanded regionally under country initiatives such as #SisBoleh (Malaysia) and #WomenWelcome (Thailand), Grab's Women Driver-Partners Programme has targeted the gender gap in Southeast Asia's ride-hailing and delivery gig economy, where women make up only about 42% of the regional workforce.

Activities

The programme combines women-only onboarding sessions, a 'Women Passengers Preferred' matching feature, self-defence training (offered in Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia), a regional anti-harassment guidebook, and women-only peer communities across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Results

Grab reported 135,000 active women and PWD driver-partners earning through its platform in 2024 (with PWD partners more than doubling from 2021 to 5,140) and set a public target of 300,000 by 2030. More than half of women driver-partners had activated the Women Passengers Preferred feature by December 2024, producing a reported 1.35-fold increase in woman-to-woman matches. A March 2026 study of 42,000 respondents (Grab, UN Global Compact Network Singapore and Kantar) found 86% of women driver-partners reported increased financial independence, 80% a higher quality of life, and 22% had no active income before joining platform work (2.4 times the rate reported by men); women partners were estimated to have generated around US$0.8 billion in regional economic output in 2025.

Conclusions

Because Grab commissioned and co-published the study together with an external research firm and a UN-affiliated network, the figures should be read as company-linked but methodologically transparent rather than fully arms-length, and no independent academic replication of the findings was found at the time of writing.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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