Low Pay Research Articles

What Makes Our Medical Laboratory Workforce Unique?

Abstract Introduction/Objective A career in the medical laboratory requires advanced education and technical training. To assist both employers and employees, several government organizations conduct demographic, education, and wage surveys for the general U.S. labor market. Through its workforce surveys, the American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP) does the same for the medical laboratory professions. Our aim was to compare the findings of these surveys and identify similarities and dissimilarities between the general labor pool and the medical laboratory workforce. Methods/Case Report Since the 2021 ASCP Wage survey is currently open, we reviewed the findings described in ASCP’s 2019 Wage Survey of Medical Laboratories in the United States (Am J Clin Pathol 2021;155:649-673) with the publicly available information (for 2019) on demographics, educational attainment, and average hourly earnings available on the websites of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) as well as United States Census (www.census.gov). Results (if a Case Study enter NA) In 2019, the male: female ratio was 52.9:47.1 in general labor pool and 19.1:80.9 in the medical laboratory workforce. The average age of a worker in the general labor pool was 41.9 years and was 42 years in the medical laboratory workforce. The average hourly earnings were $27.99/hour in the general labor pool and ranged from $16.64/hour (phlebotomists) to $53.95/hour (pathologists assistants) in the medical laboratory workforce, with the MLS/MT/CLS earning $30.02/hour to $52.53/hour. While 33.1% adults in the U.S. have attained a bachelor’s degree or above, 73.79% have attained this in the medical laboratory workforce. Conclusion Compared to the general labor pool, the medical laboratory workforce is a highly educated workforce and has a higher participation by women. The average worker age and average hourly wage are comparable. We encourage laboratorians to participate in ASCP surveys since such surveys reveal data that can drive better prospects for the medical laboratory workforce.

Quantifying the Invisible Labor in Crowd Work

Crowdsourcing markets provide workers with a centralized place to find paid work. What may not be obvious at first glance is that, in addition to the work they do for pay, crowd workers also have to shoulder a variety of unpaid invisible labor in these markets, which ultimately reduces workers' hourly wages. Invisible labor includes finding good tasks, messaging requesters, or managing payments. However, we currently know little about how much time crowd workers actually spend on invisible labor or how much it costs them economically. To ensure a fair and equitable future for crowd work, we need to be certain that workers are being paid fairly for all of the work they do. In this paper, we conduct a field study to quantify the invisible labor in crowd work. We build a plugin to record the amount of time that 100 workers on Amazon Mechanical Turk dedicate to invisible labor while completing 40,903 tasks. If we ignore the time workers spent on invisible labor, workers' median hourly wage was $3.76. But, we estimated that crowd workers in our study spent 33% of their time daily on invisible labor, dropping their median hourly wage to $2.83. We found that the invisible labor differentially impacts workers depending on their skill level and workers' demographics. The invisible labor category that took the most time and that was also the most common revolved around workers having to manage their payments. The second most time-consuming invisible labor category involved hyper-vigilance, where workers vigilantly watched over requesters' profiles for newly posted work or vigilantly searched for labor. We hope that through our paper, the invisible labor in crowdsourcing becomes more visible, and our results help to reveal the larger implications of the continuing invisibility of labor in crowdsourcing.

939 Two Is Not Always Better Than One: A Quality Improvement Project Assessing Efficiency and Financial Implications Associated with Using Two Different Electronic Systems in A Busy Orthopaedic Department

Abstract Introduction Ensuring correct documentation and safe handover is key to the running of a successful surgical department. At Imperial College Healthcare Trust, this process has been made easier through various electronic systems available to our Orthopaedic department: our in-house CERNER system and out-of-house system eTrauma, the latter of which is predominantly used. The aim of this project was to assess our efficiency in terms of time management between the two systems, as well as financial implications of saved time. Method Multiple members of the Orthopaedic team timed themselves when entering information regarding a referral or an admission into both systems. This allowed us to estimate the financial implications of moving away from eTrauma. Results An average referral took 165 seconds (n = 27) to input information onto eTrauma, versus 38 seconds (n = 25) for CERNER. Time taken to document an admission was 127 seconds (n = 33) and 26 seconds (n = 31) respectively. The current hourly wage for our junior members is £22.84 per hour or 38p per minute. Moving away from eTrauma to CERNER will save around £1.50 for every 2 referrals and 2.5 admissions, solely from documentation. This is excluding the other benefits of CERNER, such as quick access to relevant clinical information, pathology results and imaging. Conclusions Leaving eTrauma behind will reduce the time spent on documentation by orthopaedic junior doctors. This will result in increased efficiency and will lessen the financial burden on an already overstretched budget. Our formal data will contribute to decision making and future resource allocation in our local Trauma and Orthopaedic Department.

The Privilege of Low Pay: Informal Educators’ Perspectives on Workforce Equity and Diversity

ABSTRACT Despite attempts to diversify the informal science education workforce, institutions like museums, zoos, and aquariums continue to be places of privilege where few can afford to make education a life-long career. This exploratory study examined informal science educators’ perspectives on workforce equity, diversity, and professionalization. Through a nationwide survey and selective interviews, educators (n = 132) were asked about their career motivations and personal and professional challenges faced before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that 59% of informal science educators surveyed were considering academic or career changes, citing workplace practices and cultures that perpetuate overwork and underpay and that have contributed to the marginalization of educators who have been historically excluded from working in the field. Our goal is to amplify educators’ voices and encourage reflection on how museums and other institutions have upheld oppressive structures that prevent goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion from being holistically achieved.

The Conservatives’ Economic Strategy

The Conservatives’ Economic Strategy

Exploring Gender and Caste Intersectionality among Muslims: A Sociological Study

Aim Caste studies conducted among Muslims in India generally focus on establishing the existence of caste system among Muslims but they seldom talk about different types of oppression and inequalities faced byMuslim women.This empirical study exploreshow gender and caste identities and their mutual intersectionality impact education,occupation and income choices and actual attainments of Muslim women. Methods This study is part of a larger study conducted among Muslims of Kashmir in India.Primary datawas collected from 704 eligible respondents (Male=392, Female=312) using mixed methods. Three layers of ‘caste like’ and ‘caste’ groups existing in the research area are identified and gender situation within these groups are comparatively examined. Results Each of the ‘caste like’ and ‘caste’ groupshas patriarchal caste capital.Higher professions within the government and private services are largely acquired by upper caste male Muslims or other male and female Muslims having rich cultural and social capital. There is preponderance of lower caste male Muslims in low income self-employment but lower caste Muslim females seldom find say in family based business and compelled to join low paid private jobs. More than fifty percent educated Muslim females are unemployed. Conclusion Although patriarchy is the general rule here, not all women face discrimination and inequality in the same way. Upper caste Muslim women often witness so called benevolent restriction of choices whereas lower caste women are the most excluded and marginalised section of the society who face double discrimination due to patriarchy and interwoven caste positions which severely impacts their educational as well as employment choices and attainments.

Time Costs and Out-of-Pocket Costs in Patients With Chronic Hepatitis C in a Publicly Funded Health System

ObjectivesChronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection affects more than 70 million people worldwide and imposes considerable health and economic burdens on patients and society. This study estimated 2 understudied components of the economic burden, patient out-of-pocket (OOP) costs and time costs, in patients with CHC in a tertiary hospital clinic setting and a community clinic setting. MethodsThis was a multicenter, cross-sectional study with hospital-based (n = 174) and community-based (n = 101) cohorts. We used a standardized instrument to collect healthcare resource use, time, and OOP costs. OOP costs included patient-borne costs for medical services, nonprescription drugs, and nonmedical expenses related to healthcare visits. Patient and caregiver time costs were estimated using an hourly wage value derived from patient-reported employment income and, where missing, derived from the Canadian census. Sensitivity analysis explored alternative methods of valuing time. Costs were reported in 2020 Canadian dollars. ResultsThe mean 3-month OOP cost was $55 (95% confidence interval [CI] $21-$89) and $299 (95% CI $170-$427) for the community and hospital cohorts, respectively. The mean 3-month patient time cost was $743 (95% CI $485-$1002) (community) and $465 (95% CI $248-$682) (hospital). The mean 3-month caregiver time cost was $31 (95% CI $0-$63) (community) and $277 (95% CI $174-$380) (hospital). Patients with decompensated cirrhosis bore the highest costs. ConclusionsOOP costs and patient and caregiver time costs represent a considerable economic burden to patient with CHC, equivalent to 14% and 21% of the reported total 3-month income for the hospital-based and community-based cohorts, respectively.

Carrier-bed plays in the Denver and Powder River Basins

Carrier-bed plays are a new type of unconventional oil play that are currently being developed in North America. The reservoirs are generally low quality because of any of the following: thin beds (heterolithic strata), diagenesis, or burrowing (heterogeneous, mixing of sandstones or carbonates and mudstones). The carrier beds are pervasively hydrocarbon saturated and can occur over an areally extensive (greater than than 50 square miles, greater than 129 square kilometers) area. These low-quality reservoirs generally do not meet traditional petrophysical cutoffs and because of the clay content can create low resistivity, low contrast pays. The reservoirs may be composed of clastics or carbonates or a mixture of both. A sub-category of a carrier-bed play is a halo play. Halo plays are the low permeability flanking edges of a conventional oil accumulation (i.e., waste zone or the fringe). The low reservoir quality is generally stratigraphic in origin (facies change from high quality to low quality reservoirs). Carrier-bed and halo plays are being developed with horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing. Traditional vertical drilling yields marginal to uneconomic wells but are a clue to the existence of a carrier-bed play. This paper reviews Upper Cretaceous carrier bed plays in the Denver (Codell SandstoneMember of the Carlile Shale) and Powder River (Turner Sandy Member of the Carlile Shale) basins.

Real wage growth in the U.S. health workforce and the narrowing of the gender pay gap

BackgroundHealthcare has been identified as a job engine during recent recessions in the U.S. Whether the healthcare sector provides better than average pay remains a question. This study investigates if wages grew with the expanding demand for healthcare workers between 2001 and 2017. Wage growth in the (1) physicians and surgeons, (2) nurse, (3) healthcare practitioner and technical, (4) healthcare support, and (5) direct patient care jobs are examined. The gender pay gap in each occupation is investigated.MethodsThe American Community Survey (ACS) public use microdata sample (PUMS) for 2001, 2004, 2008, 2013, and 2017 were used to derive hourly wages for full-time, full-year workers aged 18–75. The cumulative percent change in unadjusted, median hourly wages between 2001 and 2017 was calculated for each occupation. Quantile regression estimates predicted a median hourly wage for men and women by year and job after adjusting for differences in demographics, industry, and hours worked.ResultsUnadjusted median wage growth was 9.92% for nurses, 5.68% for healthcare practitioners, and 37.6% for physicians between 2001 and 2017. These rates are roughly above the estimated national rate of wage growth at the 50th wage percentile. In healthcare support and direct patient care occupations, workers experienced either stagnant or negative wage growth. Women had lower occupational wages than men.ConclusionThe slow or negative median wage growth in all but the physician occupation between 2004–2008 and 2008–2013 confirms that healthcare wages in the U.S. are not recession-proof, unlike healthcare employment. Generally, women's earnings grew at rates that were higher or less negative than rates for men. This trend contributed to narrowing the gender pay gap in every occupation except for nurse.

Exploring the dynamics of workplace typologies for sex workers in Eastern Ukraine

ABSTRACT We examine the typologies of workplaces for sex workers in Dnipro, Ukraine as part of the larger Dynamics Study, which explores the influence of conflict on sex work. We conducted a cross-sectional survey with 560 women from September 2017 to October 2018. The results of our study demonstrate a diverse sex work environment with heterogeneity across workplace typologies in terms of remuneration, workload, and safety. Women working in higher prestige typologies earned a higher hourly wage, however client volume also varied which resulted in comparable monthly earnings from sex work across almost all workplace types. While sex workers in Dnipro earn a higher monthly wage than the city mean, they also report experiencing high rates of violence and a lack of personal safety at work. Sex workers in all workplaces, with the exception of those working in art clubs, experienced physical and sexual violence perpetrated by law enforcement officers and sex partners. By understanding more about sex work workplaces, programmes may be better tailored to meet the needs of sex workers and respond to changing work environments due to ongoing conflict and COVID-19 pandemic.

Socioeconomic Status of Second-Generation Southeast Asians: New Evidence and Analysis

Over a million refugees and other immigrants arrived in the United States from Southeast Asia starting in 1975. Forty-five years later, their adult children have completed their education in the U.S. and entered the labor force. This study uses a large microdata sample from the American Community Survey to describe and compare the socioeconomic status of Southeast Asian American adults and native-born white adults. Results are disaggregated by gender, generation (Generation 1.5 and Generation 2), and ethnic group (Hmong, other Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese). Regression analysis – controlling for age, educational attainment, and other factors – shows that native-born white men generally have higher predicted median hourly wages and earnings and higher labor force participation rates than Southeast Asian men, although Vietnamese men surpass white men in some measures. On the other hand, Southeast Asian women’s predicted median wages, earnings, and labor force participation rates exceed those of native-born white women.

Are You Ready for Some Football? Estimating the Effect of American Football Season on Labor Supply in the United States

American football season reduces the Monday labor hours of employed men by two-thirds of an hour. A similar effect is found for Friday labor hours. We term these effects the “hangover effect” and “happy hour effect.” Consistent with a wide class of labor market models, the labor supply effect varies over the business cycle, increasing in expansions. The hangover effect implies an intertemporal elasticity of labor supply on the order of 0.014. Evaluated at the median hourly wage, our estimates imply an annual economic cost of foregone earnings associated with football season in the neighborhood of $5.06 billion.

The Economical and Financial Impact of COVID-19 Epidemic on Migrant Labor Force

The objective of this study is to investigate the economic and financial effects of COVID-19 epidemic on migrant labor force. Literature review is the research design of this study. It is possible to achieve economic growth in the short term with some productivity-enhancing measures. However, what matters is the long-term economic growth. This is because, as the source of long-term economic growth and technological innovations, skilled labor force is more concrete. Therefore, for long-term economic growth, supply of skilled workforce is an indispensable precondition. Results are analyzed by comparing different resources, evaluating the literature and taking advantage of International Labor Organization (ILO) and Organization for Economic Co-operating and Development (OECD) statistics. According to study results, COVID-19 poses an unprecedented negative impact on working conditions of migrant work force. Migrant workers are among the most vulnerable in the global labor force affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. But, COVID-19 lock downs will particularly have the highest negative impact on low paid and low skilled (unskilled) migrant work force. Unskilled migrant workers are often excluded from national COVID-19 policy responses in hosting countries, such as wage subsidies, unemployment benefits or social security and social protection measures. Also, access to COVID-19 testing or medical treatment might not be available to unskilled migrant workers. Concerning conclusion and recommendations, migrant workers, should be integrated into risk pooling mechanisms to guarantee social insurance and universality of coverage and solidarity in financing. Health care related benefits can also assist to protect both migrant workers and their host countries.

Peanuts minus Schulz: Distributed Labor as a Compositional Practice/Le travail distribué comme pratique organisationnelle

Peanuts minus Schulz: Distributed Labor as a Compositional Practice/Le travail distribué comme pratique organisationnelle

The immigrant-native wage gap in Germany revisited

This study provides new evidence on the levels of economic integration experienced by foreigners and naturalised immigrants relative to native Germans from 1994 to 2015. We decompose the wage gap using the method for unconditional quantile regression models by employing a regression of the (recentered) influence function (RIF) of the gross hourly wage on a rich set of explanatory variables. This approach enables us to estimate contributions made across the whole wage distribution. To allow for a detailed characterisation of labour market conditions, we consider a comprehensive set of socio-economic and labour-related aspects capturing influences of, e.g., human capital quality, cultural background, and the personalities of immigrants. The decomposition results clearly indicate a significant growing gap with higher wages for both foreigners (13.6 to 17.6%) and naturalised immigrants (10.0 to 16.4%). The findings further display a low explanation for the wage gap in low wage deciles that is even more pronounced within immigrant subgroups. Cultural and economic distances each correlate strongly with wages. A different appreciation of foreign educational qualifications, however, widens the wage gap substantially by 4.5%points on average. Moreover, we observe an indication of deterioration of immigrants’ human capital endowments over time relative to those of native Germans.

Codell carrier-bed play, Denver Basin

Carrier-bed plays are an emerging type of unconventional oil play in which reservoirs are generally of low quality because they are characterized by: 1) thinly bedded heterolithic strata; 2) significant compaction and/or diagenesis; and 3) burrowing that has mixed sandstones and mudstone lithologies (i.e., heterogeneous lithologies). In this type of play, the carrier beds are pervasively hydrocarbon saturated and can be areally extensive (>50 mi2 or 130 km2). These low-quality reservoirs generally do not meet traditional petrophysical cutoffs and because of their high clay contents can have low resistivity, low contrast pays. The reservoirs may be composed of siliciclastics or carbonates or both. Due to reservoir quality and degree of oil migration, carrier-bed plays like the Codell are being developed with horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing. Traditional vertical drilling yields marginal to uneconomic wells that can provide a clue to the existence of a carrier-bed play. The Codell Sandstone is a low-resistivity, low-contrast pay in parts of the northern Denver Basin. The area of oil and gas production is in the deeper part of the basin between and including Silo and Wattenberg fields of Wyoming and Colorado, respectively. The thickness of the Codell in this part of the Denver Basin ranges from 15 to 25 ft (4.5 to 7.6 m). Keys to Codell production are source rock maturity, and oil entrapment in the carrier bed. Oil in the Codell carrier-bed traps was generated in various intervals including the Niobrara (mainly the “B” marl), Sharon Springs Member of the Pierre Shale, Greenhorn/Carlile, and, rarely, the Mowry Shale.

Trade Unions, Bargaining Coverage and Low Pay: A Multilevel Test of Institutional Effects on Low-Pay Risk in Germany

Employment relations scholars argue that industrial relations institutions reduce low pay among the workforce, while the insider-outsider literature claims that unions contribute to increase the low-pay risk among non-union members. This article tests these expectations by distinguishing, respectively, between the individual effect of being a union member or covered by collective agreements and the sectoral effect of strong trade unions or encompassing collective agreements. Findings from multilevel logistic regression analyses of the German Socio-Economic Panel reveal that unions and bargaining coverage have distinct effects at individual and sectoral level. The analysis of their cross-level interactions provides partial support to both the insider-outsider approach, since non-union members are more exposed to the risk of low pay in highly unionized sectors, and to the power resource perspectives, since the probability of being in low pay in sectors with encompassing collective agreements decreases also for those workers who are not covered by them.

Availability, pricing and affordability of essential medicines in Eastern Ethiopia: a comprehensive analysis using WHO/HAI methodology

BackgroundAccess to essential medicines is a universal human right and availability and affordability are the preconditions for it. In line with the sustainable development goals, World Health Organization (WHO) has outlined a framework that assists the policy makers to improve access to essential medicines for universal health coverage by 2030. However, the availability and affordability of essential medicines remains suboptimal in several low-income countries. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the availability, pricing and affordability of essential medicines in eastern Ethiopia.MethodsA cross-sectional study design was employed to conduct this study. Public and private health facilities found in Eastern Ethiopia and which fulfilled criteria set forth by WHO/Health Action International (HAI) guideline and essential medicines listed on WHO/HAI guideline and essential medicine list of Ethiopia were included. Accordingly, 60 medicine outlets were selected based on the WHO/HAI standardized sampling methodology. A standardized data collection tools developed by WHO/HAI, with necessary modifications, was employed to collect the data. Median Price Ratio (MPR) was computed as a ratio of median local buyers’ price to international buyers’ reference price. The Mann–Whitney U test was employed to compare the median buyers’ price between public and private health facilities. Kruskal–Wallis test was also run to explore the median price difference among all facilities. Treatment affordability was calculated based on the number of days of wage of the lowest-paid government employee of Ethiopia required to purchase the prescribed regimen.ResultsThe overall percent availability of originator brand (OB) versions of essential medicines was found to be 3.6% (range: 0.0–31.7%), with the public and private sectors contributing 1.43% and 5.50%, respectively. The overall percent availability of lowest price generics (LPGs) was 46.97% (range: 1.7–93.3%) (Public: 42.5%; private: 50.8%). Only eight LPGs (16.0%) met the WHO target of 80%. The Mann–Whitney U test indicated that 64% drugs showed statistically significant median price difference between public and private settings (p < 0.05). The MPR value indicated that the median buyers’ price of drugs in private sector were more than four times the international reference price in 30% of drugs. The percentage of unaffordable medicine were 72.09 and 91.84% for public and private facilities, respectively, with 79.17% of the medicines were unaffordable when both settings were combined.ConclusionOnly 16% of the surveyed medicines surpassed the WHO cut-off point of 80%. Nearly one-third of drugs in the private sector had a price of more than four times compared to the international reference prices. Moreover, four out of five drugs were found unaffordable when both settings were combined, demanded several days of wage of lowest paid government employee. This finding calls a prompt action from stakeholders to devise a strategy that help promote the access of essential medicines and rescue the struggling healthcare system of Ethiopia.

U.S. Healthcare: A Story of Rising Market Power, Barriers to Entry, and Supply Constraints

Healthcare in the United States is the most expensive in the world, with real per capita spending growth averaging 4 percent since 1980. This paper examines the role of market power of U.S. healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies. It finds that markups (the ability to charge prices above marginal costs) for publicly listed firms in the U.S. healthcare sector have almost doubled since the early 1980s and that they explain up to a quarter of average annual real per capita healthcare spending growth. The paper also finds evidence that the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion were successful in raising coverage and expanding care, but may have had the undesirable side-effect of leading to labor cost increases: Hourly wages for healthcare practitioners are estimated to have increased by 2 to 3 percent more in Medicaid expansion states over a five-year period, which could be an indication that the supply of medical services is relatively inelastic, even over a long time horizon, to the boost to demand created by the Medicaid expansion. These findings suggest that promoting more competition in healthcare markets and reducing barriers to entry can help contain healthcare costs.

‘There is still some work to be done, but we’ve come a long way’: the changing position of women in technical television jobs

ABSTRACT Although there is a body of scholarship concerning women’s roles in the British media industries, few studies have analysed how women’s career paths within these industries have changed over time. This article addresses that omission. It draws on empirical research with 130 women working in the UK television industry, to provide insights into the changing nature of women’s roles across technical, production and editorial areas over the last forty years. Previous research and industry reports have shown women were concentrated in low status, low paid, feminised roles, with little chance of promotion. This study provides significant evidence of women’s career paths now being more varied and flexible, with improved opportunities in ‘quasi-technical’ areas within production. Women are now better represented across television production roles, although the same cannot be said for many location-based craft occupations such as camera, sound and lighting, where difficult to tackle, unmanageable gender inequalities remain.