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Peckham, Trevor, Brian Flaherty, Anjum Hajat, Kaori Fujishiro, Dan Jacoby & Noah Seixas (2022): What Does Non-standard Employment Look Like in the United States? An Empirical Typology of Employment Quality. In: Social indicators research, Jg. 163, H. 2, S. 555-583. DOI:10.1007/s11205-022-02907-8

Abstract

"Despite significant interest in the changing nature of employment as a critical social and economic challenge facing society—especially the decline in the so-called Standard Employment Relationship (SER) and rise in more insecure, precarious forms of employment—scholars have struggled to operationalize the multifaceted and heterogeneous nature of contemporary worker-employer relationships within empirical analyses. Here we investigate the character and distribution of employment relationships in the U.S., drawing on a representative sample of wage-earners and self-employed from the General Social Survey (2002–2018). We use the multidimensional construct of employment quality, which includes both contractual (e.g., wages, contract type) and relational (e.g., employee representation and participation) aspects of employment. We further employ a typological measurement approach, using latent class analysis, to explicitly examine how the multiple aspects of employment cluster together in modern labor markets. We present eight distinct employment types in the U.S., including one resembling the historical conception of the SER model (24% of the total workforce), and others representing various constellations of favorable and adverse employment features. These employment types are unevenly distributed across society, in terms of who works these jobs and where they are found in the labor market. Importantly, women, those with lower education, and younger workers are more likely to be in precarious forms of employment. More generally, our typology reveals limitations associated with binary conceptions of standard vs. non-standard employment, or insider–outsider dichotomies envisioned within dual labor market theories." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © Springer-Verlag) ((en))

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Baird, Matthew, John Engberg & Italo A. Gutierrez (2021): Outcome Mechanisms for Improved Employment and Earnings through Screened Job Training: Evidence from an RCT. (IZA discussion paper 14435), Bonn, 32 S.

Abstract

"This study fills a gap in the literature on the outcome mechanisms in which successful training programs improve employment and earnings, such as raises on the job or longer job duration. The city of New Orleans implemented a job training program as an RCT for low-income workers. Individuals in the treatment group were more likely to work in the target industries and move out of low-skill industries. In the first 9 months after training, the treatment group experienced higher earnings with new employers and with existing employments. After 9 months, the effects were driven by higher probability of staying with an employer (with now-higher earnings). Findings encourage patience on the part of trainees and the government, as workers may not find their stable, target employment immediately. Government may also want to find ways to improve early connections with employers after training." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Haidar, Julieta & Miska Keune (Hrsg.) (2021): Work and Labour Relations in Global Platform Capitalism. (ILERA Publication series), Cheltenham: Elgar, 288 S. DOI:10.4337/9781802205138

Abstract

"This engaging and timely book provides an in-depth analysis of work and labour relations within global platform capitalism with a specific focus on digital platforms that organise labour processes, known as labour platforms. Well-respected contributors thoroughly examine both online and offline platforms, their distinct differences and the important roles they play for both large transnational companies and those with a smaller global reach." (Author's abstract, © Edward Elgar Publishing) ((en))

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Leupp, Katrina, Sabino Kornrich & Julie Brines (2021): 'Stuck' in nonstandard schedules? Married couples' nonstandard work schedules over the life course. In: Community, work & family, Jg. 24, H. 1, S. 20-38. DOI:10.1080/13668803.2019.1619517

Abstract

"Though employment outside of regular daytime business hours has remained high since the 1990s, trends in nonstandard employment schedules over the life course and across households remain under-examined. The consequences of nonstandard scheduling extend to workers, their spouse, and children, urging greater attention to the distribution of nonstandard schedules at the couple-level. Using all three waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, this article examines the prevalence, persistence and sociodemographic patterns of rotating and night employment at the couple-level, following 913 married couples in the United States as they aged from the late 1980s to early 2000s. Though aging reduced the likelihood that couples had one or both spouses working nonstandard hours, roughly one-third of couples with nonstandard scheduling continued to experience nonstandard schedules during the subsequent observation period. Nonstandard schedules were stratified by education and race/ethnicity. This stratification persisted as couples aged, even after controlling for prior work schedules. Findings suggest that disadvantaged couples remain disproportionately exposed to schedules associated with negative outcomes for family well-being across the life course." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Liu, Shimeng & Xi Yang (2021): Human capital externalities or consumption spillovers? The effect of high-skill human capital across low-skill labor markets. In: Regional Science and Urban Economics, Jg. 87. DOI:10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2020.103620

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Macartney, Hugh, Eric Nielsen & Viviana Rodriguez (2021): Unequal worker exposure to establishment deaths. In: Labour Economics, Jg. 73. DOI:10.1016/j.labeco.2021.102073

Abstract

"It is well understood that adverse economic shocks affect workers nonuniformly. We explore a new channel through which unequal employment outcomes may emerge during a downturn: displacement through the extensive margin of establishment deaths. Intuitively, workers who are concentrated in less resilient establishments prior to an economic decline will be disproportionately affected by its onset. Using rich administrative employment and establishment data for the United States, we show that Black workers bore the brunt of the Great Recession in terms of within-industry employment changes arising from establishment deaths. This finding has important implications for the evolution of worker disparities during future downturns." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © 2022 Elsevier) ((en))

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O'Brady, Sean (2021): Fighting precarious work with institutional power: Union inclusion and its limits across spheres of action. In: BJIR, Jg. 59, H. 4, S. 1084-1107. DOI:10.1111/bjir.12596

Abstract

"Research shows that union inclusion is critical to resisting precariousness, yet the role of institutional power is not adequately addressed. Through an investigation of eight retailers in four countries, this study uniquely examines how inclusive union strategies, cost competition and institutional power interact in different ‘spheres of action’. In the product market sphere, unions struggle to prevent labour cost competition between firms from eroding working conditions. In the production sphere, unions struggle to prevent labour cost competition between workers in a single firm from eroding working conditions. This article finds that multi‐level sources of institutional power are a precursor to effective union inclusion and articulating action towards threats from cost competition. I thereby argue that union efforts to resist precarious work are contingent on access to power from institutions. The article concludes with reflections on how institutional power relates to other forms of power." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons) ((en))

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Chafe, David & Lisa Kaida (2020): Harmonic dissonance : Coping with employment precarity among professional musicians in St John's, Canada. In: Work, employment and society, Jg. 34, H. 3, S. 407-423. DOI:10.1177/0950017019865877

Abstract

"Precarious employment literature has addressed a myriad of occupations increasingly characterized by employment uncertainty and reduced commitment between workers and employers due to short-term contracts and self-employment, with particular attention given to creative industries and the gig economy in recent years. The authors argue that research on creative industries also requires consideration of the role of place in the experience of employment insecurity and career commitment. This article focuses on self-employed musicians in the mid-sized city of St John's, Canada. Interviews with 54 musicians draw attention to coping strategies for long periods of low pay and employment insecurity. These strategies include downplaying competition and conflict, acquiring higher education and changing career. It is argued that population size and location of the community where work is based have implications on such coping strategies and on career longevity." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Hepp, Rolf, David Kergel & Robert Riesinger (Hrsg.) (2020): Precarized society. Social Transformation of the welfare state. (Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung - transdisziplinäre Studien), Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 274 S.

Abstract

"This book provides international and transdisciplinary perspectives on Hyperprecarity and Social Structural Transformations in European Societies, USA and Russia enforced through other special transformation processes such as digitalisation, migration and demographic change. It has been observed that precarity and social insecurity do not refer any longer only to certain groups of the society such as unemployed people or to those ones who are ‘traditionally’ more in need of social benefit etc. but it accompanies and affects greater parts of the society, particularly those sections of the middleclass who conceive their social identity merely via their work ethics. Consequentially new forms of social exclusion are being producing taxing the traditional social cohesion in European societies due to the demand of new forms of flexibility and mobility from the working people. This process can be termed with the notion 'Hyperprecarisation'. This book contains contributions from scientists all over Europe, Russia and the USA, who are members of the SUPI network “Social Uncertainty, Prequarity, Inequality”." (Publisher information, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Inanc, Hande (2020): Varieties of Precarity: How Insecure Work Manifests Itself, Affects Well-Being, and Is Shaped by Social Welfare Institutions and Labor Market Policies. In: Work and occupations, Jg. 47, H. 4, S. 504–511. DOI:10.1177/0730888420934539

Abstract

"Precarious Lives addresses one of the most important developments in employment relations in the neoliberal era: increase in labor precarity and the subsequent decline in employee well-being. Drawing on data on social welfare institutions and labor market policies in six rich democracies, the author shows that work is less precarious, and workers are happier, when institutions and policies provide job protection, and put in place support systems to buffer job loss." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Kang, Hyunju, Jaevin Park & Hyunduk Suh (2020): The rise of part-time employment in the great recession: Its causes and macroeconomic effects. In: Journal of macroeconomics, Jg. 66. DOI:10.1016/j.jmacro.2020.103257

Abstract

"During the Great Recession, the U.S. economy witnessed a substantial rise in part-time employment for a sustained period. We extend the New Keynesian unemployment model by Galí et al. (2012) to allow substitutions between full-time and part-time labor, and estimate the model’s parameters by using the Bayesian method. Inour model, households and firms can optimally allocate full-time and part-time labor, and disturbances exist in part-time labor supply (household disutility from part-time labor) and part-time labor demand (firms’efficiency to use part-time labor). As for the Great Recession, the initial increase in part-time employment at the outset of the financial crisis is mostly explained by the rise of the risk premia; the persistently high level of part-time employment in the later period is mainly explained by an exogenous increase in part-time labor supply. A part-time labor supply shock also explains a significant portion of slow recovery in the gross wage during the recession, as the shock lowers the part-time wage and the proportion of full-time workers in total employment. Notably, the results from our model suggest that though the transition from full-time to part-time jobs contributed to mitigating the sharp contraction in total employment and labor force during the Great Recession, it played only a limited role in relieving recessionary pressure." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © 2020 Elsevier) ((en))

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Appelbaum, Eileen, Arne Kalleberg & Hye Jin Rho (2019): Nonstandard work arrangements and older Americans, 2005-2017. Washington, DC, 25 S.

Abstract

"Nonstandard or alternative employment relations refer to employment by a temporary help agency or contract company or as an on-call worker or day laborer. We refer to these nonstandard employment relations (which involve an employer and employee) and independent contracting collectively as nonstandard or alternative work arrangements in this report. Contingent workers are workers who do not expect their job to last or who report that their jobs are temporary. Contingent workers and workers in alternative work arrangements are measured separately. Both have become increasingly prominent in theoretical and policy thinking about how employment has changed in recent years in the United States and other post-industrial countries.
Until recently, only relatively poor information on the extent of contingent work and nonstandard work arrangements and how this has changed during the past several decades has been available. The May 2017 Contingent Worker Supplement (CWS) - conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 12 years after the last CWS and 22 years after the first -provides an opportunity to examine how contingent work and nonstandard work arrangements have changed over the last two-plus decades. This report examines these changes between 2005 and 2017, with special attention to how older workers - ages 55 to 65 and 65+ - have fared." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Blanchflower, David G. (2019): Not working: Where have all the good jobs gone? Princeton Univ. Press 440 S.

Abstract

"Don't trust low unemployment numbers as proof that the labor market is doing fine - it isn't. Not Working is about those who can't find full-time work at a decent wage - the underemployed - and how their plight is contributing to widespread despair, a worsening drug epidemic, and the unchecked rise of right-wing populism. In this revelatory and outspoken book, David Blanchflower draws on his acclaimed work in the economics of labor and well-being to explain why today's postrecession economy is vastly different from what came before. He calls out our leaders and policymakers for failing to see the Great Recession coming, and for their continued failure to address one of the most unacknowledged social catastrophes of our time. Blanchflower shows how many workers are underemployed or have simply given up trying to find a well-paying job, how wage growth has not returned to prerecession levels despite rosy employment indicators, and how general prosperity has not returned since the crash of 2008.
Standard economic measures are often blind to these forgotten workers, which is why Blanchflower practices the 'economics of walking about' - seeing for himself how ordinary people are faring under the recovery, and taking seriously what they say and do. Not Working is his candid report on how the young and the less skilled are among the worst casualties of underemployment, how immigrants are taking the blame, and how the epidemic of unhappiness and self-destruction will continue to spread unless we deal with it." (Publisher's text, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Broten, Nicholas, Michael Dworsky & David Powell (2019): How do alternative work arrangements affect income risk after workplace injury? (NBER working paper 25989), Cambrige, Mass., 61 S. DOI:10.3386/w25989

Abstract

"Alternative work arrangements, including temporary and contract work, have become more widespread. There is interest in understanding the effects of these types of arrangements on employment and earnings risk for workers and the potential for existing social insurance programs to address this risk. We study employment and earnings risk in the context of workplace injuries among temporary and contract workers. We link administrative workers' compensation claims to earnings records to measure the employment and earnings risk posed by workplace injuries, comparing labor market outcomes after injury between temporary and contract workers and direct-hire workers injured doing the same job. We use a triple-difference identification strategy to isolate the effect of alternative work arrangements. We find that temporary workers have significantly lower probabilities of employment post-injury relative to similar direct-hire workers; temporary workers also have more severe earnings losses, which persist for at least three years after injury. This difference in income risk cannot be explained by differences in employment dynamics between temporary and direct-hire workers. We find evidence that the additional earnings losses suffered by temporary workers are offset by workers' compensation benefits, suggesting that the program provides insurance for the incremental risk faced by temporary workers." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Datta, Nikhil (2019): Willing to pay for security: A discrete choice experiment to analyse labour supply preferences. (CEP discussion paper 1632), London, 60 S.

Abstract

"This paper investigates the extent to which labour supply preferences are responsible for the marked rise in atypical work arrangements in the UK and US. By employing vignettes in a discrete job choice experiment in a representative survey, I estimate the distribution for preferences and willingness -to-pay over various job attributes. The list of attributes includes key distinguishing factors of typical and atypical work arrangements, such as security, work-related benefits, flexibility, autonomy and taxation implications. The results are indicative that the majority of the population prefer characteristics associated with traditional employee -employer relationships, and this preference holds even when analysing just the sub- sample of those in atypical work arrangements. Additionally, preferences across the UK and US are very similar, despite differences in labour market regulations. Rather than suggesting that labour supply preferences have contributed to the increase in atypical work arrangements, I find that the changing nature of work is likely to have significant negative welfare implications for many workers." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Even, William E. & David A. Macpherson (2019): The affordable care act and the growth of involuntary part-time employment. In: ILR review, Jg. 72, H. 4, S. 955-980. DOI:10.1177/0019793918796812

Abstract

"This study tests whether the employer mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) increased involuntary part-time (IPT) employment. Using data from the Current Population Survey between 1994 and 2015, the authors find that IPT employment in 2015 exceeded predictions based on economic conditions and the structure of the labor market. Of greater importance, using difference-in-difference methods, they find that the increase in the probability of IPT employment since passage of the ACA was greater in occupations with a larger share of workers affected by the mandate. The authors' estimates suggest that approximately 700,000 additional workers without a college degree are in IPT employment as a result of the ACA employer mandate." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Liu, Kai (2019): Wage risk and the value of job mobility in early employment careers. In: Journal of labor economics, Jg. 37, H. 1, S. 139-185. DOI:10.1086/698898

Abstract

"This paper shows that job mobility is a valuable channel that employed workers use to mitigate bad labor market shocks. I estimate a model of wage dynamics jointly with a dynamic model of employment and job mobility. The key feature of the model is the specification of wage shocks at the worker-firm-match level, for workers can respond to these shocks by changing jobs. I find that, relative to the variance of individual-level shocks, the variance of match-level shocks is large and the consequent value of job mobility is substantial, particularly for workers whose match-specific wages are low." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Stecy-Hildebrandt, Natasha, Sylvia Fuller & Alisyn Burns (2019): 'Bad' jobs in a 'good' sector: Examining the employment outcomes of temporary work in the Canadian public sector. In: Work, employment and society, Jg. 33, H. 4, S. 560-579. DOI:10.1177/0950017018758217

Abstract

"Canada's public sector has historically provided good jobs, but its increasing reliance on temporary workers has important implications for job quality. We compare temporary and permanent workers in the public sector on three dimensions of job quality (employment security, access to benefits and income trajectories) to assess whether favourable conditions in the public sector are extended to temporary employees, or whether polarization between temporary and permanent workers is the norm. We find provisions related to employment security and access to leave benefits in public sector collective bargains are clearly two-tiered. Drawing on nationally representative panel data, we also find a persistent earnings gap between matched permanent and temporary employees. Further, although temporary public sector workers out-earn their private sector counterparts, the earnings disadvantage relative to matched permanent workers is more pronounced and longer lasting in the public sector. Underlying this difference is greater persistence in temporary employment within the public sector." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel & Etienne Lalé (2018): The welfare effects of involuntary part-time work. In: Oxford economic papers, Jg. 70, H. 1, S. 183-205. DOI:10.1093/oep/gpx033

Abstract

"Employed individuals in the USA are increasingly more likely to move to involuntarily part-time work than to unemployment. Spells of involuntary part-time work are different from unemployment spells: a full-time worker who takes on a part-time job suffers an earnings loss while remaining employed, and is unlikely to receive income compensation from publicly provided insurance programmes. We analyse these differences through the lens of an incomplete-market, job-search model featuring unemployment risk alongside an additional risk of involuntary part-time employment. A calibration of the model consistent with US institutions and labour market dynamics shows that involuntary part-time work generates lower welfare losses relative to unemployment. This finding relies critically on the much higher probability to return to full-time employment from part-time work. We interpret it as a premium in access to full-time work faced by involuntary part-time workers, and use our model to tabulate its value in consumption-equivalent units." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel & Etienne Lalé (2018): The ins and outs of involuntary part-time employment. (IZA discussion paper 11826), Bonn, 20 S.

Abstract

"We develop an adjustment procedure to construct U.S. monthly time series of involuntary part-time employment stocks and flows from 1976 until today. Armed with these new data, we provide a comprehensive account of the dynamics of involuntary part-time work. Transitions from full-time to involuntary part-time employment dominate this dynamics, spiking up at recessions' onsets and persisting well into recovery periods. On the other hand, weaknesses in job creation contribute little to these fluctuations. Our data and findings are relevant to inform a broader assessment of labor market performance and to develop models of cyclical labor adjustment." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))