Race, Ethnicity, and Underemployment in Nonmetropolitan America: A 30‐Year Profile*

Abstract

Historically, rural racial and ethnic minorities have been among the most economically disadvantaged groups in the United States. Key to understanding economic deprivation is employment hardship, trends in which serve as a benchmark for progress toward racial and ethnic equality. We conceptualize employment hardship as underemployment, which goes beyond unemployment to include discouraged workers, involuntary part-time workers, and the working poor. Analyzing data from the March Current Population Surveys of 1968 through 1998, we find that (1) there are large and persistent racial and ethnic inequalities in underemployment prevalence; (2) these disadvantages are explained only partially by other predictors of underemployment; (3) nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) minorities are more likely than either all metropolitan (metro) or central-city minorities to be underemployed; (4) black-white inequality has held steady overall, though it has declined markedly in nonmetro areas; and (5) Hispanic-white inequality has increased; this trend, however, is restricted to metro areas, central cities in particular.

Intergenerational Profiles of Socioeconomic (Dis)advantage and Obesity During the Transition to Adulthood

“…Blacks were more represented in the group from poor, unemployed, single-mother households (Persistent Disadvantage), consistent with research showing that blacks are more likely than whites to come from single-mother households (Bumpass and McLanahan 1989) with low income (Zhan and Pandey 2004). In contrast, Hispanics were most represented in the group from working-poor, two-parent households (Disadvantaged Fast Starters), which is supported by nationally representative data showing that a large proportion of Hispanics in the United States are underemployed (Jensen and Slack 2003; Slack and Jensen 2002), the majority of whom are “working poor” (De Jong and Madamba 2001). In addition, we found that the majority of low-SES Asians were from the working-poor, two-parent adolescent households characterizing Disadvantaged Fast Starters, which is consistent with literature on the employment and family structure of Asian families in the United States (De Jong and Madamba 2001; McLoyd et al 2000).…”

Spatial Context and Poverty: Area-Level Effects and Micro-Level Effects on Household Poverty in the Texas Borderland & Lower Mississippi Delta: United States, 2006

“…For example, certain industrial structures such as high proportions of employment in financial services (Singelmann 1978;Parisi et al 2003;Rupasingha and Goetz 2007) and manufacturing (Brady and Wallace 2001;Cotter 2002;Rupasingha and Goetz 2007) tend to reduce aggregate poverty. There is also widespread consensus that the proportion of the working-age population that is employed is associated with lower poverty in counties (Cotter 2002;Slack and Jensen 2002;Gundersen 2006;Rupasingha and Goetz 2007). Other factors that tend to increase the poverty rate of counties are the percent of families headed by females without a spouse present (Albrecht et al 2000;Goe and Rhea 2000;Lichter et al 2003;Lichter and McLaughlin 1995); a high proportion of the population aged 15 years of age and under (Cotter 2002;Rupasingha and Goetz 2007;Adelman and Jaret 1999); and the nonmetropolitan status of the county (Jensen et al 2003;Jensen and Tienda 1989;O'Hare 1988;Parisi et al 2003;Rank and Hirschl 1988;Rural Sociological Society Task Force on Persistent Rural Poverty 1993;Saenz and Thomas 1991).…”

Birth and Fortune Revisited: A Cohort Analysis of Underemployment, 1974–2004

“…Further, by starting the analysis in the mid-1970s we are able to exclude the effects associated with the Vietnam War, including the military draft and educational draft deferments. 2 Race/ethnicity has been shown to have an important impact on underemployment, with whites suffering far lower odds of being underemployed compared to their black and Hispanic counterparts (see for example,Slack and Jensen 2002). Beginning in 2003, the CPS allowed individuals to identify themselves as members of more than one racial group.…”