COVID-19 precipitated sharp job losses, concentrated in the service sector. Prior research suggests that such shocks would negatively affect health and wellbeing. However, the nature of the pandemic crisis was distinct in ways that may have mitigated any such negative effects, and historic expansions in unemployment insurance (UI) may have buffered workers from negative health consequences.
We assess how the distribution of parents across firms contributes to parenthood wage gaps in a low-wage US labor market and examine the role of understudied compensating differentials relevant to precarious work.
The labor market is the site of longstanding and persistent inequalities across race and gender groups in hiring, compensation, and advancement. In this paper, we draw on data from 13,574 hourly service-sector workers to extend the study of intersectional labor market inequalities to workers’ experience on the job. In the service sector, where workers are regularly expected to be on their feet for long hours and contend with intense and unrelenting workloads, regular break time is an essential component of job quality and general well-being. Yet, we find that Black women are less likely than their counterparts to get a...
The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically reshaped the labor market, especially for service sector workers. Frontline service sector workers, already coping with precarious working conditions, faced proximate risks of COVID-19 transmission on the job and navigated new workplace safety measures, including masking, social distancing, and staying home while sick, all in a polarized political environment.
Access to paid family and medical leave (PFML), including leave to care for a seriously ill loved one or recover from one's own serious illness, conveys health and economic benefits for workers and their families.
Unequal sorting of men and women into higher and lower-wage firms contributes significantly to the gender wage gap according to recent analysis of national labor markets.
A substantial portion of the service sector workforce is middle aged or older, but little is known about the scheduling conditions of these older workers. This study describes the quality of work schedules in the service sector by age and tests associations of unpredictable schedules with well-being and job retention among workers ages 50-80.
Paid sick leave helps workers recover from illness and manage care obligations and protects public health. Yet access to paid sick leave remains limited and unequal in the United States.
