The underemployment of American rural women: prevalence, trends and spatial inequality
Lichter, D.T.
Journal of Rural Studies 5(2): 199-208
1989
ISSN/ISBN: 0743-0167 PMID: 12342400 DOI: 10.1016/0743-0167(89)90046-6Document Number: 357202
The growing numerical significance of women in the U.S. nonmetropolitan labor force has not been matched by parallel efforts to document the changing 'quality' of their employment. In this paper, I use the labor utilization framework of Clogg and Sullivan [(1983) Social Indicators Research12, 117–152] to examine the prevalence and spatial convergence of various forms of female underemployment during 1970–1985. Data from the March annual demographic files of the Current Population Survey reveal that underemployment has been a significant aspect of the employment experiences of nonmetropolitan women during this period. There has been little evidence of spatial or sex convergence in labor market outcomes. Roughly one of every three rural female workers today is a 'discouraged worker', jobless, employed part-time involuntarily, or working for poverty-level wages. Moreover, rural women continue to suffer substantially higher levels of economic underemployment than urban women and rural men. This study reinforces the view that rural women remain a seriously underutilized labor resource in the United States.