Constrained by factors such as difficulty in determining labor relations and unstable employment, more than 10 million food delivery riders in China remain outside the social security system, making it difficult to guarantee their basic rights. Since this year, platform companies such as JD.com and MEITUAN-W have successively introduced measures, either paying "five insurances and one housing fund" for long-term stable riders or adopting subsidies to support rider insurance participation. However, interviews reveal that in actual operations, rider insurance participation rates have not seen significant improvement.

**Riders Remain Cautious About Insurance Participation**

Starting March 1 this year, JD.com gradually began paying "five insurances and one housing fund" for its full-time food delivery riders, including pension insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, work injury insurance, maternity insurance, and housing provident fund, while providing accident insurance and health medical insurance for part-time riders.

MEITUAN-W quickly followed suit, launching pilot programs on April 3 in Quanzhou, Fujian and Nantong, Jiangsu, providing 50% subsidies to qualified riders participating in flexible employment basic pension insurance contributions. Ele.me had also previously stated that it had piloted supporting food delivery riders in paying social insurance in some cities and continuously increased special subsidy efforts and scope for stable riders.

Currently, JD.com's instant delivery platform "Dada Now," MEITUAN-W, and Ele.me have approximately 1.3 million, over 7.45 million, and over 4 million active riders annually, respectively.

Platform companies' support for rider insurance participation has been positively received. Wang Tianyu, a researcher at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that platform companies exploring rider social insurance solutions is "breaking the ice" for rider social insurance difficulties, which will help improve some riders' welfare levels and employment quality while promoting the protection of rider social insurance rights.

Zhang Chenggang, director of the New Employment Forms Research Center at Capital University of Economics and Business, stated that social insurance is not only life security but also relates to identity recognition of new employment groups. This transformation can bring many long-term benefits to enterprises, such as stabilizing rider teams, improving service quality, and user stickiness.

However, platforms' encouraging policies have not achieved obvious results. In Nantong, Jiangsu, a MEITUAN-W pilot area, data from MEITUAN-W franchise partner Nantong Runda Marketing Planning Co., Ltd. showed that the proportion of riders participating in MEITUAN-W flexible employment pension insurance was less than 8% one month after the pilot launch. Company official Xu Yan said that from the pilot start to May 7, only 40 riders participated in insurance.

According to JD.com's announcement, by the end of June this year, it could pay "five insurances and one housing fund" for 60,000 full-time riders. Industry insiders questioned that on one hand, the entry criteria for full-time riders eligible for "five insurances and one housing fund" have not been clearly disclosed; on the other hand, with approximately 1.3 million riders under JD.com's food delivery platform, how are the remaining 1.24 million people guaranteed?

**Income Anxiety and Supply-Demand Disconnect**

Why are rider insurance encouragement policies difficult to gain recognition? Research reveals three main reasons.

First, insurance participation reduces riders' take-home income. Nantong's flexible employment personnel pension insurance contribution base has twelve tiers. Calculated at the lowest monthly contribution base of 4,879 yuan, monthly contributions amount to 975.8 yuan. Under MEITUAN-W's subsidy scheme, riders contributing at the lowest monthly base can receive 487.9 yuan in subsidies. Some food delivery riders frankly stated that with platform subsidies, social insurance pressure would be reduced somewhat, but monthly take-home income would directly decrease by nearly 500 yuan.

26-year-old food delivery rider Li Jun said: "Now running one order averages about 6 yuan commission. To earn back 500 yuan, I'd need to run over 80 additional orders."

Second, riders worry that platforms will transfer insurance subsidy costs to individuals. Yang Zhenbao, a post-90s MEITUAN-W food delivery rider, told reporters that rider income largely depends on order volume and commissions. Platform subsidy policies to encourage rider insurance participation will inevitably increase operating costs. "To share rider social insurance costs, will platforms reduce rider commissions? After all, 'the wool comes from the sheep.'"

Industry analysts note that with China's total food delivery rider population exceeding 10 million, if all were provided insurance "coverage" or subsidies, the industry would need to pay costs of hundreds of billions or even trillions of yuan annually. Last year, JD.com's net profit was 41.4 billion yuan, MEITUAN-W's net profit was 35.8 billion yuan, while Ele.me continues to operate at a loss. Rider social insurance costs won't appear out of thin air but will essentially be transferred through consumers, merchants, and other channels.

Lu Jingbo, director of Shanghai Jiangsanjiao Law Firm and labor law expert, stated that if rider insurance costs are borne by enterprises, it may affect industry ecology; if costs are transferred, it might weaken policy effectiveness.

Third, security supply doesn't match actual demand. An electronic questionnaire survey distributed to over 700 food delivery riders in Nantong Economic and Technological Development Zone showed that 28% of riders clearly refused to participate in pension and medical insurance, yet 31% listed "no social insurance" as a core work concern.

Li Hanping, a party affairs worker for the food delivery industry party committee in Nantong Economic and Technological Development Zone, analyzed that this contradictory mentality reflects possible disconnects between social insurance policies and actual needs. Policy uncertainty and information asymmetry make some riders maintain wait-and-see attitudes toward insurance participation.

A post-00s food delivery rider said delivery work is just his "transitional job," and he only wants to seize time to earn more money. "I'm not sure how long I can work. If I pay for a few days then leave, wouldn't that be a waste?"

**Flexible Occupations Call for "Flexible Security"**

Industry insiders and experts stated that platforms encouraging rider insurance participation is positive and will produce certain demonstration effects. However, to do good things well and solve social security difficulties for flexible occupation groups represented by riders, exploration and innovation in institutional mechanisms and operational details are still needed.

On one hand, improve legislation and create a "mini social insurance" system. Wang Liufei, associate professor at Nantong University's Business School, believes the core contradiction in flexible employment personnel social insurance coverage difficulty lies in the institutional separation between "labor relations" and "individual rights." Legislation should clarify the principle that "individual insurance participation is independent of labor relations." He suggests borrowing from "mini social insurance" models to establish low-rate, full-coverage "basic security accounts" covering pension, medical, and unemployment insurance, with supporting "portable social insurance accounts" systems to achieve zero barriers for cross-provincial transfers, multi-occupation overlapping insurance participation, and flexible contribution periods, helping flexible workers achieve "mobility without loss, flexibility with security."

On the other hand, establish positive incentive mechanisms to enhance riders' intrinsic motivation for insurance participation. Li Hanping suggests platforms incorporate social insurance contributions into "star rider" evaluation systems, providing graduated rewards such as priority order dispatch and preferential rates for continuous participants, achieving dual binding of rights protection and career development. Meanwhile, pilot "social insurance subsidy special funds" to issue fixed delivery subsidies monthly to insured riders, using economic leverage to stimulate participation enthusiasm.