Bad Jobs in America: Standard and Nonstandard Employment Relations and Job Quality in the United States

The prevalence of nonstandard jobs is a matter of concern if, as many assume, such jobs are bad. We examine the relationship between nonstandard employment (on-call work and day labor, temporary-help agency employment, employment with contract companies, independent contracting, other self-employment, and part-time employment in "conventional" jobs) and exposure to "bad" job characteristics, using data from the 1995 Current Population Survey. Of workers age 18 and over, 31 percent are in some type of nonstandard employment. To assess the link between type of employment and bad jobs, we conceptualize "bad jobs" as those with low pay and without access to health insurance and pension benefits. About one in seven jobs in the United States is bad on these three dimensions. Nonstandard employment strongly increases workers' exposure to bad job characteristics, net of controls for workers' personal characteristics, family status, occupation, and industry. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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