Underemployment: Social Fact or Socially Constructed Reality?*

Abstract

This paper contrasts rural underemployment as a social fact with rural underemployment as a socially constructed reality. Using both survey data and in‐depth interviews with persistently underemployed rural residents, we were able to determine whether we were imposing our definition of reality on the interviewees. The data from the interviews largely demonstrated a correspondence between our objective definition of reality as defined by measures of underemployment and the informants' subjective interpretation of their employment situation. This procedure demonstrated that the underemployed had created their own subjective reality, which had become an objective reality: a socially created fact. A few cases, however, raised concerns about the extent to which that reality was widely shared because the interviewees' definitions did not correspond to our objective definitions or did not make sense in their own situations. Other interviewees' comments raised significant questions about the applicability of formal labor market concepts and measures, which tend to overlook the unique characteristics of rural labor markets such as uncompensated labor, self‐employment, and multiple job holding. Thus the indepth interviews provided conceptual checks on the extent to which we can impose our definitions of the situation on respondents' subjective reality.

Training as a social purpose: are economic and social benefits delivered?

“…Other indicators of underemployment in the sample included respondents who were not working and have given up looking for work (i.e. not counted in unemployment statistics) and respondents employed in positions well below that might be expected given their level of education (Jensen & Slack, ; Livingstone, ; Stofferahn, ). Therefore, while the research focused on three categories of work status – employed, self‐employed and unemployed – it was evident that the much broader concept of underemployment was apparent.…”

Genres of Underemployment: A Dialogical Analysis of College Graduate Underemployment

“…Due to the vast number of jobs a worker can have and the number of facets of each job that could potentially measure underemployment, understanding underemployment requires more investigations in nuanced territory (Jensen & Slack, 2003). There have been a series of qualitative studies that analyze features of the underemployed experience, particularly relating to the negative effects underemployment yields for the individual; these effects include depression and a general discouragement in regard to obtaining a better job (Stofferahn, 2000;Van Ham, Mulder, & Hooimeijer, 2001;Wilkins, 2007). However, despite education's substantial role in determining one's underemployed status, a gap within the literature demonstrates a need for understanding the nuanced relationship between education and underemployment, and the following study represents one contribution towards answering this need.…”

Credential disconnection: a Marxist analysis of college graduate underemployment

“…Depression has been linked to underemployment (Dooley, Prause, & Ham-Rowbottom, 2000), as have a number of negative attitudes generated by their condition. One such attitude is characterized as the 'discouraged worker effect' or the sentiment that 'you just get used to it' (Stofferahn, 2000;Van Ham, Mulder, & Hooimeijer, 2001). This sentiment affects workers who have, for the time being, given up on seeking a more ideal form of employment and have become disheartened.…”