Premium
Underemployment in America: Measurement and Evidence
Author(s) -
Jensen Leif,
Slack Tim
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1023/a:1025686621578
Subject(s) - underemployment , unemployment , operationalization , work (physics) , labour economics , economics , economic growth , engineering , mechanical engineering , philosophy , epistemology
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.