Original Article
Race, Residence, and Underemployment: Fifty Years in Comparative Perspective, 1968–2017†
Tim Slack,
Brian C. Thiede, Leif Jensen,
Corresponding Author
Tim Slack
Louisiana State University
Address correspondence to Tim Slack, Louisiana State University, 126 Stubbs Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. E-mails: slack@lsu.edu.
Search for more papers by this authorTim Slack,
Brian C. Thiede, Leif Jensen,
Corresponding Author
Tim Slack
Louisiana State University
Address correspondence to Tim Slack, Louisiana State University, 126 Stubbs Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. E-mails: slack@lsu.edu.
Search for more papers by this author†
Earlier versions of this paper were presented in 2018 at the “Rural Poverty: Fifty Years After The People Left Behind” conference in Washington, DC, organized by the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI) with support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the annual meetings of the Southern Demographic Association in Durham, NC. The authors acknowledge the assistance provided by the Population Research Institute at The Pennsylvania State University, which has core support from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD041025). This work was also supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Multistate Research Project #PEN04623 (Accession #1013257) titled, “Social, Economic and Environmental Causes and Consequences of Demographic Change in Rural America.” Address correspondence to Tim Slack, Louisiana State University. E-mail: slack@lsu.edu.
Abstract
High underemployment has been a chronic structural feature of the rural United States for decades. In this paper, we assess whether and how inequalities in underemployment between metropolitan (metro) and nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas have changed over the course of the last five decades. Drawing on data from the March Current Population Survey from 1968 to 2017, we analyze inequality in the prevalence of underemployment between metro and nonmetro areas of the United States, paying special attention to differences between white, black, and Hispanic workers. Our results show that the underlying risk of underemployment has increased in both metro and nonmetro areas over the last 50 years. Nonmetro workers have consistently faced greater employment hardship compared to their metro counterparts, and these differences cannot be fully explained by differences in population characteristics. Nonmetro ethnoracial minorities have experienced particularly poor labor market outcomes. The disadvantage of ethnoracial minority status and rural residence is especially pronounced for nonmetro black workers, among whom underemployment has remained persistently high with only modest convergence with other workers. Hispanic workers also face an elevated risk of underemployment, but we observe a unique convergence between metro and nonmetro workers within this population.
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