ERIC Number: ED437527
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1999
Pages: 300
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: ISBN-0-521-65152-2
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Who's Not Working and Why. Employment, Cognitive Skills, Wages, and the Changing U.S. Labor Market.
Pryor, Frederic L.; Schaffer, David L.
This book explains major trends in the U.S. labor market over the last quarter-century. Chapter 1 presents hypotheses regarding the changing labor market. Chapter 2 looks at cognitive skills and formal education as determinants of employment. Chapter 3 develops the argument that the downward occupational mobility arising from changes in the supply and demand for jobs requiring particular educational credentials has created a cascading displacement effect, by which workers with higher education displace workers with less education. Chapter 4 demonstrates that a major determinant of the displacement effect has been the rapid entry of women into the labor force. Chapters 5-6 examine wage trends between 1971-1995, including stagnation or fall of real wages of most major groups in the labor force and increased rate of return to a college degree, and changes in wage inequality. Chapter 7 examines five misleading theories explaining joblessness: technological change, structural changes in production and productivity, imports from low-wage nations, immigration, and spatial mismatch of people and jobs. Chapter 8 examines the influence of subjective factors (work attitudes) and soft skills (communication abilities) on sorting and displacement mechanisms in labor markets. Chapter 9 examines whether labor market mechanisms that have operated over the last quarter-century will continue and looks briefly at policy implications. The book contains 272 references, endnotes, and name and subject indexes. (YLB)
Descriptors: Adult Education, Dislocated Workers, Education Work Relationship, Educational Attainment, Educational Benefits, Employed Women, Employment Patterns, Labor Market, Reentry Students, Technological Advancement, Thinking Skills, Unemployment, Wages
Cambridge University Press, 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-5211 *hardback: ISBN-0-521-65152-2, $34.95; paperback: ISBN-0-521-79439-0, $22.95). Web site: http://www.cup.org.
Publication Type: Books
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A