Underemployment in America: Measurement and Evidence

Authors: Jensen L.¹; Slack T.²

Source: American Journal of Community Psychology, Volume 32, Numbers 1-2, September 2003 , pp. 21-31(11)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

An important way in which employment hardship has come to be conceptualized and measured is as underemployment. Underemployment goes beyond mere unemployment (being out of a job and looking for work), to include those who have given up looking for work, part-time workers whose employer(s) cannot give them full-time work, and the working poor. To provide needed background for the other articles in this special issue, we trace the history of the concept of underemployment, review existing empirical literature, offer a critique of the measurement of underemployment as conventionally operationalized, and provide up-to-date evidence on the trends and correlates of underemployment in the United States.

Keywords: employment; unemployment; underemployment; working poor; discouraged workers

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University; lijl@psu.edu 2: Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University

Publication date: 2003-09-01