Do you remember what you were doing in the summer of 2017? Whatever it was, hopefully it involved tipping your Uber driver, because the truth is coming out now.
The National Bureau of Economic Research just published a new study on Uber tipping behavior based on 40 million UberX rides taken over four weeks during summer ’17, Wired reported.
While social expectations surrounding tipping in restaurants are fairly well-established, Uber tipping remains a largely unregulated world. Researchers found that drivers were tipped in a mere 16 percent of rides, only 1 percent of riders tipped every time, and 60 percent never tipped at all.
Among both riders and drivers, gender seemed to play an interesting role in the tipping results. Male riders tipped 19 percent more often than female ones, and they also tipped 23 percent more. Meanwhile, female drivers, especially younger ones, were more likely to receive tips than male drivers. This pattern was strongest among male riders.
Researchers also found that riders were more likely to tip their drivers if it was their second trip with the same driver. According to the researchers, this small level of social connection may have been responsible for a 27 percent tipping increase.
Of course, as Wired noted, Uber tipping behavior may have changed since these observations were first collected, especially since Uber had recently introduced in-app tipping at the time.
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