Occupational Composition and Racial/Ethnic Inequality in Varying Work Hours in the Great Recession

Abstract

A varying number of work hours from week to week creates considerable hardships for workers and their families, like volatile earnings and work-family conflict. Yet little empirical work has focused on racial/ethnic differences in varying work hours, which may have increased substantially in the Great Recession of the late 2000s. We extend literatures on racial/ethnic stratification in recessions and occupational segregation to this topic. Analyses of the Survey of Income and Program Participation show varying weekly hours became significantly more common for White and Black, but especially Latino workers in the late 2000s. The growth of varying weekly hours among White and Latino workers was greatest in predominantly minority occupations. However, the growth among Black workers was greatest in predominantly White occupations. The paper discusses implications for disparities in varying hours and the salience of occupational composition beyond earnings.

What Explains Racial/Ethnic Inequality in Job Quality in the Service Sector?

“…Black and Hispanic workers receive less advance notice of their work schedules than white workers and have less schedule control, but they do not experience more work-hour volatility. Finnigan and Hunter (2018) show that during the Great Recession, Hispanic workers saw the greatest increase in work-hour volatility, but whereas for Hispanics this increase was concentrated among workers in primarily minority occupations (defined as a continuous variable for percent white in approximately 12,000 state-occupation-industry cells), for Black workers the growth in volatility was greatest in predominately white occupations.…”

The impact of COVID-19 on work from home of ethnic groups in the USA: evidence from time-use data

“…, 2009; Porthé et al. , 2010; Finnigan and Hunter, 2018; Sisk and Donato, 2018; Storer et al. , 2020).…”

“…What we know and could infer form studies on immigrants is that ethnic/racial minorities present several vulnerabilities in the labor market that might affect time allocation to paid WFH. Research shows that ethnic minorities and immigrants usually have precarious jobs, which implies unstable work schedules, high levels of part-time work, and higher variability in the number of hours worked (Mcdowell et al, 2009;Porthé et al, 2010;Finnigan and Hunter, 2018;Sisk and Donato, 2018;Storer et al, 2020). These vulnerabilities are likely exacerbated during recessions.…”