Past Research at ISERP
Labor Market Intermediaries and Minority Workers
by Kathryn Neckerman (ISERP)
The growth of the temporary help industry and the emergence of new kinds of "mediated" employment relationships are changing the structure of opportunity for low-skilled workers. Many assessments of this change have been fairly negative, focusing on the lower wages and poorer benefits of contingent work. To understand the long-term implications of contingent work, however, we must also consider the impact on skill formation and occupational mobility. The Columbia Study of Work Transitions will compare social integration and job training among workers in conventional and contingent employment relationships. It examines the impact of individual and workplace characteristics on social integration and on job training, with special attention to how social relations at work become conduits for informal job training. The research focuses on young, non-college workers in New York City; it will sample recently-hired workers and follow them over time. Minority workers are disproportionately represented in temporary and contract employment; the research will examine whether the impact of these new kinds of employment differs by race or ethnicity. The project will add to our knowledge of the impact of labor market intermediaries on less-skilled workers, and more generally to our understanding of basic labor market processes. The grant supports a year of planning, instrument development, and pilot research in preparation for a large-scale survey.
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Funded by Russell Sage Foundation »
