LaBriola Joe, Schneider Daniel
University of California, Berkeley.
Soc Forces. 2020 Mar;98(3):973-999. doi: 10.1093/sf/soz032. Epub 2019 Jun 11.
Precarious work, which has become more prevalent in the United States in recent decades, is disproportionately experienced by workers of lower socioeconomic classes, and research suggests that the erosion of worker power has contributed to this class polarization in precarity. One dimension of precarious work of growing interest to scholars and policymakers is instability faced by workers in the amount and regularity of their work hours. However, we know little about the magnitude of month-to-month or week-to-week (intra-year) volatility in hours worked, the extent of class-based polarization in this measure of job quality, and whether worker power moderates this polarization. In this paper, we make novel use of the panel nature of the nationally-representative Current Population Survey (CPS) to estimate intra-year volatility in the actual hours respondents report working in the previous week across four consecutive survey months. Using this new measure, we then show that, net of demographic characteristics and controls for occupation and industry, low-wage workers experience disproportionately greater work hour volatility. Finally, we find evidence that reductions in marketplace bargaining power-as measured by higher state-level unemployment rates-increase wage- and education-based polarization in work hour volatility, while increases in associational power-as measured by union coverage-reduce wage-based polarization in work hour volatility.
不稳定工作在近几十年来在美国变得更加普遍，社会经济阶层较低的工人遭受这种情况的比例过高，而且研究表明，工人权力的削弱促成了这种不稳定方面的阶层两极分化。学者和政策制定者日益关注的不稳定工作的一个维度是工人在工作时长数量和规律性方面面临的不稳定性。然而，我们对工作时长的逐月或逐周（年内）波动幅度、这种工作质量衡量指标中基于阶层的两极分化程度，以及工人权力是否缓和这种两极分化知之甚少。在本文中，我们创新性地利用具有全国代表性的当前人口调查（CPS）的面板性质，来估计受访者在前四周连续四个调查月中报告的实际工作时长的年内波动情况。使用这一新指标，我们进而表明，在扣除人口特征以及职业和行业控制因素后，低薪工人经历的工作时长波动比例过高。最后，我们发现证据表明，以州层面较高失业率衡量的市场议价能力下降，会加剧基于工资和教育的工作时长波动两极分化，而以工会覆盖率衡量的社团权力增加，则会减少基于工资的工作时长波动两极分化。
