The collection of three documents offers a two-page summary of research conducted in 1970 and the two resulting papers. Most of the work involved the preparation and analysis of data from the Survey of Economic Opportunity. The first paper, Why is the Unemployment Rate So High at Full Employment? examines the nature of the unemployment that…

This study was conducted to determine how many workers are in low-wage jobs; their characteristics and changes in their characteristics over time; the characteristics of the low-wage jobs; gender, sex, and racial factors influencing participation in low-wage jobs; and the relationship of low-wage work to family poverty and welfare receipt. The…

This report summarizes the presentations and discussions at a conference on contingent labor sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor. The first two sections are introductory: (1) "Introduction to the Role of Contingent Labor" (Kathleen Christensen, Mary Murphree); and (2) "Between Now and the Year 2000: A Glimpse of the Workplace" (Jill Houghton…

The United States requires a coordinated, national approach to human resource development that will result in the establishment of priorities, detailed planning, and the full use of public and private resources backed by adequate state and federal funding. Problems of unemployment, underemployment, skilled worker shortages, national defense needs…

Implications of new government approaches to manpower planning and its relationship to higher education in Ontario are examined. In January 1980 the Council of Ontario Universities released a background paper on the employment of university graduates, which reviewed the current major economic and demographic analyses of youth unemployment, the…

A study of underemployment, written as part of the development of a management information project (MISOE) for the Division of Occupational Education of the Department of Education in Massachusetts, the work represents the beginning of an effort to bring systematic, empirically based policy analysis to bear on problems of occupational education.…

This first of two volumes is organized around the theme of the social, political, and economic contexts of education and training. (Volume II focuses on the development of vocational policy. Both volumes form part of the Open University MA Module, Education, Training, and the Future of Work.) An introduction (Geoff Esland, John Ahier) provides an…

Part of a series from the Child Care Law Center, this issue of "Working for Change" discusses the need for quality, affordable child care as a support for working parents trying to break out of welfare dependency. This report details the current realities of poor parents who struggle to find and pay for child care while they work and…

American society is based on work. The industrial revolution exposed a growing proportion of the population to unemployment, underemployment, and dislocation. Early theoreticians believed that unemployment was a temporary labor market imbalance that would correct itself with downward wage adjustments. John Maynard Keynes, on the other hand, argued…

The Defense Conversion Adjustment (DCA) Demonstration, administered by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Work-Based Learning, consisted of 19 demonstration projects that used three approaches to alleviate the negative impacts of defense cutbacks on communities, firms, and workers: community planning, dislocation aversion, and worker…

Although U.S. policymakers have adopted the view that work is the solution to poverty, work may not ensure a decent standard of living for many families. This report estimates the number of families who are not making ends meet. It examines the cost of living in various communities in every state and determines "basic family budgets" for…

This monograph outlines public policy responses to deal with the effects of forced worklife changes fashioned by government in the United States, Japan, and Western European countries. From the Morrill Act of 1862, through New Deal policy initiatives and on to the "active" manpower policies operating in Europe, the record of government…

The examination of Irish manpower policy is largely devoted to a consideration of the strategy for economic development and permanent job creation--as well as to a study of various aspects of the procedures and administrative arrangements adopted to attain these objectives. Attention is drawn to the fundamental imbalances in the Irish…

This document examines the causes and consequences of Black male joblessness. First, key insights and recommendations of a 1993 policy roundtable on labor force participation and family formation are summarized. Discussed next are the following issues related to the economic and social alienation of Black men: joblessness and absence from the…

Social statistics may exaggerate the degree of hardship caused by labor market problems. Yet, in many ways social statistics underestimate the degree of hardship caused by extended unemployment, underemployment, and low wages. Therefore, new measures are needed to reassess long-term and cyclical labor market developments, the changing status of…