Low-wage Workers Research Articles

The Disposable “Essential” Workers of COVID-19

COVID-19 reshaped almost every aspect of economic activity and working life in the United States. It also amplified existing racial, gender, and economic disparities, significantly impacting working people. Specifically, low-wage essential workers of color experienced higher levels of exposure, long-term health complications, and COVID-19-related deaths than other workers. Thus, the episodic allocation of pandemic health risks tracks and illustrates inequalities that require more extensive solutions in the workplace. This Article demonstrates how race, gender, and citizenship shape the employment and life outcomes of essential workers who sustained the economy throughout the pandemic. Building on a health justice framework, it fills a gap in legal scholarship by identifying six employment-related factors compounding systemic inequalities. Profiling COVID-19-related lawsuits involving low-wage workers, it also analyzes the effectiveness of available legal remedies. Amid immense human loss, there are clear lessons in changing labor and employment structures to protect, rather than dispose of, essential workers from magnifying inequalities. Thus, this Article proposes adopting employment equity principles to address intersectional disparities in the workplace. Using the expertise of on-the-ground advocacy organizations, it also examines and critiques several administrative, legislative, and regulatory interventions. In light of impending health and climate change pandemics, this Article provides actionable steps to protect the most vulnerable among us.

Parametric estimation of quantile versions of Zenga and D inequality curves: methodology and application to Weibull distribution

Inequality (concentration) curves such as Lorenz, Bonferroni, Zenga curves, as well as a new inequality curve – the D curve, are broadly used to analyse inequalities in wealth and income distribution in certain populations. Quantile versions of these inequality curves are more robust to outliers. We discuss several parametric estimators of quantile versions of the Zenga and D curves. A minimum distance (MD) estimator is proposed for these two curves and the indices related to them. The consistency and asymptotic normality of the MD estimator is proved. The MD estimator can also be used to estimate the inequality measures corresponding to the quantile versions of the inequality curves. The estimation methods considered are illustrated in the case of the Weibull model, which has many applications in life sciences, for example, to fit the precipitation data. In econometrics it is also considered to fit incomes, especially in the case when a significant share of population have low incomes, for example, in less developed countries or among low-paid jobs.

Global Ambitions, Local Support. Understanding Faculty Influence on International Students' Career Development

International students’ education and migration journeys have become more prominent in public discourse, often with stereotypes of students as low-wage workers rather than emerging professionals. When their own narratives are centred, however, international students emphasize their hopes for faculty and institutional support in reaching their career aspirations. These aspirations may also be linked to post-graduate work permits or migration plans. A student-centred faculty intercultural teaching taxonomy developed at a Western Canadian postsecondary institution highlights five faculty practices that support career development: (1) affirming students’ skills, knowledge, and experience; (2) recognizing non-academic factors, including present work, in students’ lives; (3) supporting transition to the labour market; (4) building connections with students; and (5) demonstrating cultural sensitivity. This web of practices highlights the faculty career influencer function. As career influencers, faculty can recognize the systemic barriers students face in their education and immigration journeys, guide students in questioning dominant narratives, provide support and advocacy in pursuing meaningful professional career paths, and serve as advocates. International students identify faculty as key career influencers. Institutional support and faculty development are required help faculty take a holistic view of students’ career journeys and recognize their critical role as influencers, guides, and advocates.

Financial crisis and its association with parental stress and children’s mental health in Lebanon

BackgroundLebanon has experienced a series of devastating crises that continue to have significant adverse effects on the mental health of parents and their children, especially those who are unemployed, burdened with debt or financial difficulties, and have pre-existing mental health conditions. Accordingly, this study aimed to assess the effect of financial insecurities on parents in Lebanon amid the multiple crises, and the impact of parents’ mental health on their children’s emotional and behavioral wellbeing.MethodsA cross-sectional study including 589 parents in Lebanon was performed using convenience sampling of parents of any gender with children aged 4 to 18 from the five Lebanese governorates. The study collected the sociodemographic data of the participants and incorporated supplementary measures such as the Parental Stress Scale (PSS), Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC), and the InCharge Financial Distress/Financial Well-Being (IFDFW) scale. Statistical tests included bivariate analysis, ANOVA test, linear regression, and mediation analyses.ResultsA total of 589 parents, primarily mothers, participated in this study. Most children were males in elementary school. Bivariate analyses revealed that parents with non-Lebanese nationality, primary education, employment, or children in technical schools reported significantly higher PSS and PSC scores. Negative correlations were observed between the IFDFW scale and both PSS (r=-0.200, p < 0.001) and PSC scores (r=-0.086, p = 0.038), indicating lower stress and symptoms with improved financial well-being. Multivariable analysis showed that higher PSC scores, age, complementary education, and Lebanese nationality were associated with increased parental stress, while unemployment, lower age, and higher IFDFW were associated with reduced stress. Similarly, higher PSC scores were linked to increased parental stress, age, non-Lebanese nationality, and IFDFW, whereas university education, higher GPA, and residence outside Beirut/Mount Lebanon were associated with reduced PSC scores. Mediation analysis indicated that parental stress fully mediated the relationship between IFDFW and PSC scores, underscoring the impact of financial well-being on a child’s psychological symptoms via parental stress.ConclusionsThe study revealed significant financial distress and low financial well-being among participants amid Lebanon’s economic crisis, with a notable mediated association between financial well-being, parental stress, and child mental health symptoms. Parental stress was heightened among those with lower education levels, non-Lebanese nationality, and employment in low-wage jobs, with children from these families exhibiting elevated mental health symptoms. Additionally, regional factors and socioeconomic status played a role, as children in urbanized areas and technical schools reported higher distress. Targeted interventions are urgently recommended to alleviate financial and emotional burdens on families and ensure improved mental well-being for both parents and children.

SWOT ANALYSIS ON REBRANDING 3D SECTORS IN MALAYSIA WITH THE INTEREST TO ATTRACT LOCAL WORKFORCE

Malaysians perceived 3D (dirty, dangerous, and difficult) work sectors less appealing due to numerous hazards involved and characterised as low-paying job. Low participation of Malaysian in these sectors such as manufacturing, construction, services, agriculture, mining and quarrying have created scarcity or labour shortages. Therefore, to ease the pain of the main driver of Malaysia economic growth, Malaysia employs foreign workforce to fill in the gaps left by Malaysian itself. The objective of this study is to find strength, weakness, opportunity and threat of rebranding 3D sectors in Malaysia. This study employs qualitative systematic review, content analysis and secondary data to draw out the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat from previous work by scholars, statistics reports and news reports. The findings can assist analyst, researchers, policymakers and other respective bodies in these industries strengthening the weaknesses, grab the opportunity, mitigate the risk and explore on new fresh ideas that could help in rebranding 3D sector by increasing local participation and reduce overreliance of foreign workers.

Factors That Influence MSW Students’ Referral Decisions for Depression: A Factorial Survey

Purpose Depression is one of the most commonly treated conditions in mental health practice. However, outcomes have been poor and social workers face a host of treatment-related dilemmas. Method This study used factorial survey methodology to disentangle the effects of client, practice, and respondent characteristics on master's in social work (MSW) students’ antidepressant referral decisions. A total of 426 ( n = 426) MSW students each judged three unique vignette scenarios yielding 1,266 ( n = 1,266) judgments analyzed using multilevel model analyses. Results Findings suggest that the decision to refer was most influenced by previous response to antidepressant treatment, symptom profiles with suicidal ideations and anxiety, and recurrent episodes of depression. To a lesser degree, respondents’ personal use of psychotropic medications and beliefs about physician prescribing patterns also influenced antidepressant referral decisions. Discussion This study illuminates the complex effects of clinical and non-clinical factors on MSW students’ antidepressant referral decisions.

“Do good and talk about it”: informal representation and migrant-led civil society organizations’ mediation between low-wage labor migrants and state institutions in the GCC countries

Low-wage labor migrants experience major human and working rights abuses in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries despite national labor laws and signatures to various human rights conventions. On paper, India has established an institutional framework of transnational social protection for its officially estimated 5.5 million low-wage workers migrating to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, e.g., financial emergency support, repatriation services, and walk-in centers. However, migrants in low-wage employment often cannot access substantive social rights in practice. Indian upper/middle-class migrant civil society groups mediate their access to Indian embassies’ services and the destination countries’ state institutions. The realization of social rights via informal, third-party representation stems from a representational disjuncture between low-wage labor migrants and the Indian state, which is rooted in their historical socioeconomic marginalization, limitations of the formal political system, and the constitutive role of informality in shaping and structuring citizen-state interactions in India. Through the lens of Piper and von Lieres’ (2015) concept of mediated citizenship and based on data from semi-structured interviews and participant observation of migrant support networks in the Gulf countries, this article examines why mediation takes place and how volunteers speak and take action for marginalized migrants in low-wage employment and consequences of mediation. It argues that migrant volunteer organizations and individuals are powerful stakeholders in the migration governance in the GCC region, as they possess leverage over who has (better) access to state institutions and the provision of social and human rights. Their status as intermediaries underlines the disaggregation of Indian citizenship along class and caste lines, which can be (mis)-used by mediators to pursue their interests, resulting in ambiguous effects. The article contributes to perspectives on migration governance in the GCC region, transnational social policies, and migrant volunteering.

Socialist Exploitation of the Worker in the First Half of the 1950s: a Case Study of the H. Cegielski Industry Plant in Poznań

Building the "foundations of the socialist system" meant intensive industrialization in the economy, with an emphasis on heavy industry, which was to be achieved mainly at the expense of the standard of living and working conditions of workers. By adopting unrealistic indicators, political and administrative methods were used to force employees to make more effort, without compensating it with the amount of earnings. Various methods were used: one of the elements of exploitation was low wages, or even the so-called “starvation wages” for some of the workers. The authorities suggested the possibility of increasing them through additional work. In this case, labor competition or long-term production commitments were initiated. On the other hand, the working time needed to produce specific products was administratively shortened, standards were constantly raised, etc. As a result of these activities, the living conditions of employees not only did not improve but even deteriorated. It turned out that the socialist employer is not at all different from the capitalist, and sometimes is even worse than him, because he has a greater range of possibilities of pressure and, in case they resist, of repression. By paying starvation wages, the system kept the rest of the profit earned for its own needs. He was also blind in looking at the real problems, most often looking for a mythical “enemy” or activist party members. Exploited beyond measure, the workers tried in every way to limit this exploitation, hence the abysmal quality of production, huge consumption of materials, widespread waste or simply avoiding work. The party's methods of activation proved ineffective, which the Poznań workers reminded the authorities of on 28 June 1956 by taking to the streets.

Infrastructures of Migrant Intimacies

This paper explores how housing, people and places function as infrastructures in discussions of migrant intimacies. Intimacy is here understood both as relations between humans and as co-becomings with the more-than-human. The concept of co-becoming refers to the ontological thinking that all beings, materialities, places and affects are constituted through relations that are constantly regenerated. Infrastructures are understood not as prefigured objects or structures but as relational, dynamic patterns. Drawing on post-humanist queer theory, the paper develops the notion of the infrastructure of migrant intimacies to portray migrant relations in ways that move beyond normative categories of intimacy. The article draws on a theory-driven analysis of interviews with European Union (EU) and non-EU migrants working in low-paid jobs in Finland. The article addresses the following question: how do human and more-than-human infrastructures converge as intimacies in migrants’ accounts? By focusing on infrastructures, the article offers a nuanced interpretation of how migrant intimacies emerge in the context of precarity as creative, temporary and ambivalent co-becomings that do not easily align with white (hetero)normative notions of intimacy or with some popular queer understandings of intimacy.

FACTORS INFLUENCING DELAY IN SEEKING MEDICAL CARE AMONG CANCER BREAST PATIENTS IN BALUCHISTAN: EXPLORE REASONS BEHIND DELAYED PRESENTATION AND HOW PATIENT EDUCATION OR COMMUNITY PROGRAMS MIGHT IMPROVE EARLY ACCESS TO CARE

Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent and deadly forms of cancer affecting women globally, and Pakistan is no exception. Objective: The main objective of the study is to find the factors influencing delay in seeking medical care among cancer breast patients and explore reasons behind delayed presentation and how patient education or community programs might improve early access to care. Methodology: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Bolan Medical College Quetta Pakistan during January 2024 till June 2024. Data were collected from 125 breast cancer patients who had been diagnosed with the disease at various stages. Results: Data were collected from 125 patients, majority of participants (70%) were aged between 40-60 years, with a mean age of 50.01 ± 7.61 years. Most were married (60%) and had attained high school education (65%). Employment status indicated that 55% of participants were unemployed, while 35% were engaged in low-paying jobs. Regarding healthcare access, 75% of urban participants had timely access to healthcare facilities, compared to only 40% of rural participants, highlighting disparities in healthcare availability. The highest delays were observed in unemployed participants (65%) and those in low-paying jobs (60%), reflecting the impact of economic constraints. Married participants (60%) also reported substantial delays, potentially linked to family dynamics and caregiving responsibilities. Conclusion: It is concluded that delayed presentation of breast cancer in Pakistan is primarily influenced by socio-cultural stigma, financial constraints, limited healthcare access, and psychological barriers.

Cannaboom: Race and Labor in California Cannabis Cultures

Encouraged by state requirements for prepackaging, Black and Latinx producers and distributors of legal cannabis in California have developed novel, symbolically and socially significant forms of marketing. Black and Latinx cannabis industries have developed their own “commodity aesthetics,” using product packaging, live events, and social media to entice buyers with a combination of beautiful sights, smells, textures, signs, and symbols that represent the contradictions of working-class Black and Latinx life in contemporary California. Black and Latinx cannabis popular cultures combine images of freedom and transcendence with depictions of the low wage jobs that many Black and Latinx people work. This is because, rather than an impediment to work, cannabis consumption is a kind of support for or accessory to labor. Many consumers use cannabis to dull the tedium and pain of labor and to sustain them throughout the workday. This essay provides a critical overview of Black and Latinx cannabis marketing in California, and its targeting of working-class consumers of color. While I discuss several examples, my central case study is the successful Black and Latinx cannabis distributor Teds Budz. I draw on interviews, ethnographies of live cannabis events, and visual studies of cannabis packages and social media, arguing that seemingly “escapist” qualities in cannabis culture critically foreground the material limits of the world from which Black and Latinx workers are trying to escape. Cannabis commodity aesthetics, I conclude, promise people of color an exit from the drudgery of work that can also tighten their ties to low wage jobs.

Resettlement, Employment, and Mental Health Among Syrian Refugee Men in Canada: An Intersectional Study Using Photovoice.

The impact of forced migration on the mental health of refugee men is far-reaching and compounded by gendered masculinity, which shapes men's access to employment and other resources. A gap in knowledge exists on the broader determinants of refugee men's mental health. Using community-based participatory action research and the arts-based method of photovoice, this study advances knowledge about the gendered impacts of forced migration from the perspective of (n = 11) Syrian refugee men in the Canadian context. Theoretical approaches of intersectionality and masculinity were applied to understand how power relations shape Syrian men's identities, their access to employment, and impacts on their mental health. Syrian men's identities were marginalized by working in low-wage jobs because of inequitable policies that favored Canadian experience and credentialing assessment processes that devalued their knowledge. Multiple and overlapping factors shaped Syrian men's mental health including language and literacy barriers, time and stage of life, isolation and loneliness, belonging and identity, and gender-based stress. Caring masculinities performed through fathering, cultural connection, and service-based work promoted agency, hope, and resilience. Public health and community-based pathways must adopt gender-responsive and intersectional approaches to policy and practice. Peer-based programs may mitigate harmful forms of masculinity and promote transformative change to support refugee men's mental health.

Experiences with COVID-19 economic relief measures among low-wage worker families: a qualitative study

BackgroundEconomic stability is a core social determinant of health and a necessary condition for maintaining food security, housing stability, and both physical and mental health. Using a qualitative approach, we identified barriers, facilitators, and participant perceptions about utilizing these relief measures. This study aimed to understand experiences with COVID-19 economic relief measures among low-wage worker households with children during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsThe study conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews from low-wage workers in households with children in two U.S. cities in 2022 (n = 40). The sample was recruited from a larger study which included survey measures of demographics and receipt or utilization of a range of relief measures with both broad and narrow eligibility criteria (e.g., Economic Impact Payments, expanded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT), expanded Child Tax Credit, expanded unemployment insurance, and the eviction moratorium). A thematic analysis of 40 interviews was conducted using a constructivist approach to grounded theory, from which barriers, facilitators, and participant perceptions were identified.ResultsInterviews identified burdensome administrative processes, administrative errors, and a lack of information as barriers to access among those who were eligible; automatic processes for distributing benefits was identified as a facilitator. Participants expressed positive perceptions about benefits, mixed with some ambivalence about the need to receive them and concern over their discontinuation.ConclusionsA segment of the population at risk of economic instability identified both barriers and facilitators to receiving an array of economic relief measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings suggest that providing automatic processes for enrollment and reliable information streams for learning about benefits can bolster benefit receipt among those at risk of economic instability. These findings can contribute to the base of knowledge for policymakers involved in responding to the next public health emergency.

Opportunities to Improve Health Equity for Employees in Low-Wage Industries in the United States.

This review describes employees working in low-wage industries in the United States, their health risks, and their access to health promotion and other health-related resources through their employers. We use publicly available datasets to illustrate how low-wage jobs affect employees' social determinants of health, health risk behaviors, and chronic conditions. We also discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted these employees' and employers' health-related priorities and work settings. We describe employees' access to health supports through federal programs and their employers and the potential ways in which low-wage employers could support employee health and well-being. We close with a brief research and practice agenda to improve health equity for employees in low-wage industries. The goal of this review is to help practitioners and researchers in workplace health promotion, occupational health, and public health reach employees and employers in low-wage industries with interventions that address employees' health risks and employees' and employers' health priorities.

Engaging Low-Wage Workers in Health and Well-Being Survey Research: Strategies From 5 Occupational Studies.

Without perspectives of low-wage workers in studies of worker health and well-being, researchers cannot comprehensively assess occupational health and health equity impacts of workplace exposures and interventions. Researchers and practitioners have noted particular challenges in engaging low-wage workers in worksite-based health survey research, yet little scholarship has described strategies for improving their engagement and response rates. To fill this gap, we present case examples from 5 occupational studies conducted between 2020 and 2024 in industries including health care, food service, and fulfillment centers. For each case, we describe how we identified barriers to worker engagement in surveys, explain specific strategies we used to address those barriers, and assess the effectiveness of these actions. Then, summarizing across case examples, we offer practical recommendations to researchers surveying low-wage populations, highlighting that high-touch recruitment, building trust with workers and managers, and obtaining manager support to take surveys during work time (for worksite-based studies) are critical for obtaining reliable, representative data. Our work contributes to broader discussions on improving survey response rates in vulnerable worker populations and aims to support future researchers undertaking similar efforts. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print November 14, 2024:e1-e8. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307875).

Economic insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic among healthcare workers by educational attainment.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers with less formal education (eg, nursing assistants and home care aides) vs more formal education (eg, physicians and nurses) were more likely to experience economic insecurity, the real and/or perceived risk of financial losses. Given the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers, we sought to describe economic insecurity among these workers during the pandemic. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey from July 2021 to July 2023, we examined economic insecurity among healthcare workers by educational attainment. Higher proportions of healthcare workers with an associate degree or below reported difficulty paying usual expenses, food insufficiency, and being behind on rent/mortgage payments compared to healthcare workers with a bachelor's degree or higher. Accounting for other sociodemographic characteristics, higher educational attainment was associated with significantly lower odds of economic insecurity. Since the public health emergency has ended and temporary policies to support low-wage workers during the pandemic have sunsetted, targeted policies to promote economic security among financially vulnerable low-wage workers are critical to enable recruitment and retention of these essential healthcare workers.

Highly educated Ukrainian migrants in Poland prior to 2022: education, work and integration efforts

ABSTRACT Drawing on recent original qualitative research, this paper focuses on the under-researched area of highly skilled migration in the relatively new migratory context of Ukrainian migrants to Poland. Commonly, migrants from Ukraine have been found to work in basic low-paid jobs and in an informal, non-regulated capacity; thus, often falling prey to precarious and insecure employment. However, this article focuses on career pathways of highly educated migrants from Ukraine in Poland and explores how they take advantage of their education and qualifications. The analysis is focused on individual-level factors. The paper discusses the findings of 29 individual in-depth interviews. Among the respondents, 15 were working in occupations requiring higher education, and 14 worked below their education. This article contributes to the literature on the use of qualifications of migrant workers from Ukraine in Poland. We found that knowledge of the Polish language, and individual attitudes influence migrants’ use of education/qualifications. The relationship between family composition and the labour market situation of people with higher education is not clearly established in this research. We hope these findings will support the integration efforts of the newly arrived forced migrants from Ukraine in Poland and beyond.

The State of the Union: A History of the Labor Movement at Vanderbilt University

This article will document the historical context of the labor movement at Vanderbilt University in order to explain the nature and interaction of the labor union with central administration over the past forty years. Recognizing the lack of scholarly attention to the labor movement in Paul Conkin’s Gone with the Ivy (1985) and Peabody College (2002) and Dale Johnson’s Vanderbilt Divinity School (2001), the author contributes to the academic literature by providing a broad overview of the historical background and current state of the labor movement. As the largest employer in Davidson County and a major contributor to the state of Tennessee’s economic development, the relationship of University administrators and labor representatives has a large impact on the condition of surrounding labor movements, particularly in the city of Nashville’s low-wage service workers sector. In providing a brief chronological synopsis of the labor movement and the role of female involvement in the union, the author concludes by providing a context for contemporary labor negotiations.

Heterogeneous job ladders

We investigate different wage growth rates over the life cycle for poor and rich workers, and how they relate to the frequency and quality of job-to-job transitions. Using the universe of labor market histories for Austrian workers born in 1960–62 to, we show that workers who are at the bottom of the earnings distribution have higher employer-to-employer transition rates than richer workers throughout their life. Nevertheless, they work for worse- and worse-paying firms as they age and are more likely to undergo unemployment spells at all ages. We propose a structural framework with learning by doing and heterogeneity along five dimensions: initial level of human capital, learning ability, and job separation propensity on the worker side, and productivity level and quality of offered learning opportunities on the employer side. Our model replicates the wage gap and the difference in the frequency of labor market transitions we document in the data, and allows us to investigate several dimensions of heterogeneity in the quality of labor market transitions. We find that poor workers’ lackluster wage growth stems from a combination of deteriorating human capital, employment in low-productivity jobs, and scarce on-the-job learning opportunities. We then evaluate a policy which matches low-wage workers to high-learning employers. We find that ameliorating the learning opportunities early in a worker’s career has a non-negligible impact on lifetime earnings. The gains from matching with a better employer greatly increase with job stability, as lower separation rates limit human capital depreciation and improve the odds of matching with high-productivity employers in the future.

Education and women in high-skill occupations in India

Purpose This paper aims to examine women’s likelihood of being employed in a high-skill occupation compared to men in India. It also analyses the impact of education on women’s likelihood of entering a high-skill occupation. Design/methodology/approach This study uses data from Periodic Labour Force Survey 2018–19. National Classification of Occupations 2004 is used to classify the occupations in three categories, i.e. high-skill, medium-skill and low-skill. The paper uses ordered probit with Heckman’s sample selection method to estimate the impact of gender identity and education on women’s likelihood of entering high-skill occupations. Findings The results show that female workers are more likely to be employed in high-skill occupations than male workers. Formal years of schooling and technical education further improve women’s probability of working in high-skill occupations compared to men. However, an increase in monthly per capita expenditure of the households improves men’s chances of being employed in high-skill occupations in comparison to women. It suggests that gender norms are still relevant. Originality/value Studies have found occupational segregation in India with a large share of women being employed in low-wage work. This study examines the issue by focusing on the skill level of occupations. It found that women have a higher likelihood of entering high-skill occupations in India and education is playing an important role in it.