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Title: Working in the New Low-Wage Economy: Understanding Participation in Low-Wage Employment in the Recessionary Era

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2015

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Abstract: This paper examines the factors that influence the likelihood of engaging in low-wage work during the recessionary and post-recessionary era. Using micro data from the 5-year 20082012 American Community Survey Estimates, we examine human capital, structural, and labor market characteristics that induce workers' participation into low-wage jobs and labor markets, as well as how these vary between and within various ethnic/racial, age, and gender groups, including Hispanic/Latino ethnic groups. We find that the factors influencing engagement in low-wage employment largely mirror those identified in pre-recessionary studies and analyses but that there is a differential effect across ethnicity, race, gender, and age that may lead to and lock specific groups of workers into low-wage employment. Using a post-estimation technique to generate predicted probabilities, we discuss how these factors influence a worker's likelihood to engage in low-wage employment across and within ethnic and racial populations, and the implications these present for contemporary scholarship, policy, and praxis.

Url: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/wusa.12151/full

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Authors: Visser, M A; Melendez, Edwin

Periodical (Full): WorkingUSA

Issue: 1

Volume: 18

Pages: 7-28

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Race and Ethnicity

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