Displaced Workers Survey Research Articles

The Nature and Unequal Incidence of Job Displacement Costs

Structural changes in industry annually displace millions of American workers. As concern over this displacement phenomenon has increased, so too has the effort to define and measure its social costs. Using data from the 1984 and 1986 Displaced Workers Survey, this paper critically examines how displacement has been defined, its costs measured, and its associated joblessness interpreted. The findings are that: (1) the official definition of the displaced worker understates the magnitude of current economic dislocations, (2) the conventional emphasis upon the human capital components of earnings loss obscures the disproportionate impact of displacement upon women and minorities, and (3) voluntaristic interpretations of labor market outcomes are difficult to reconcile with the duration and incidence of post-displacement joblessness. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the social costs of job displacement.

International Trade and the Labor Market Experience of Displaced Workers

Using data from the Displaced Workers Survey and the National Bureau of Economic Research Trade and Immigration Dataset, the author of this study finds that among manufacturing workers displaced in 1979–83, the average duration of joblessness varied directly with the rise in their industry's import share since 1972–74. This relationship appears to be due in large part to the fact that the work force in industries with rising import shares tends to have demographic characteristics associated with labor market adjustment difficulties, such as higher proportions of women and blue-collar workers than are found in other industries.