Measuring Underemployment

Measuring Underemployment: Demographic Indicators for the United States discusses the Labor Utilization Framework of Hauser and Sullivan, which is a measurement scheme that posits the existence of three dimensions, or forms, of underemployment— time, income, and skill-utilization. This book describes the conceptual groundwork, operational measurement, and implications of the Labor Utilization Framework on the way the labor force aggregates. The essential elements of the socio-demographic theory of the labor force with the logical unity provided by both the Labor Utilization Framework and the specific methodologies adopted for its analysis are also elaborated. This text likewise covers the methods for latent structure analysis and cohort analysis, including the theory of frictional underemployment; “class structure governing the distribution of labor market rewards; tempo of social change in the labor force; “productive value of a population; and “true dependency on productive labor. This publication is a good source for students and researchers concerned with different labor force topics that can be plausibly studied from the viewpoint of the Hauser-Sullivan framework.

This manual is based on the international standards adopted by the 13th International Conference of Labour Statisticians in October 1982. One of its main objectives is to explain the international concepts and definitions in more detail than in the 1982 conference resolution.

Going beyond the usual focus on unemployment, this 2004 book explores the health effects of other kinds of underemployment including forms of inadequate employment as involuntary part-time and poverty wage work. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this compares falling into unemployment versus inadequate employment relative to remaining adequately employed. Outcomes include self-esteem, alcohol abuse, depression, and low birth weight. The panel data permit study of the plausible reverse causation hypothesis of selection. Because the sample is national and followed over two decades, the study explores cross-level effects (individual change and community economic climate) and developmental transitions. Special attention is given to school leavers and welfare mothers, and, in cross-generational analysis, the effect of mothers' employment on babies' birth weights. There emerges a way of conceptualizing employment status as a continuum ranging from good jobs to bad jobs to employment with implications for policy on work and health.