Job Characteristics among Working Parents: Differences by Race, Ethnicity, and Nativity
![handle is hein.journals/month137 and id is 440 raw text is:
Monthly Labor Review
MAY 2014
Job characteristics among working parents: differences by
race, ethnicity, and nativity
Immigrants and racial and ethnic minorities make up an increasing share of the U.S. labor force and child population.
Given current disparities in children's opportunities and intergenerational mobility for children of different
backgrounds and the influence parental working conditions can have on children's development, understanding the
distribution ofjob characteristics and their quality for employed parents from difirent racial, ethnic, and immigrant
backgrounds is important. This article examines 2007 20]1 data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to
the Current Population Survey to determine minority and/orforeign-born parents'access to jobs that allow them to
invest in their children's development. Specifically, it looks at whether parents 'jobs offer a basic economic security
wage, health insurance coverage, and pension plan, because these job characteristics may influence the health, well-
being, and resources of workingfamilies and children. The analysis reveals that foreign-born, Hispanic, and Black
working parents are significantly more likely than U.S.-born, White, or Asian working parents to have ajob that pays
below the basic economic security wage, does not offer health insurance, and does not offer a pension plan. Foreign-
born Hispanic parents in particular are shown to be significantly disadvantaged in the labor market. Findings suggest
that without changes to increase parents' access to jobs with higher wages and benefits, disparities in children's well-
being and development by race and ethnicity and nativity will likely persist.
Data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) have documented the dramatic change in the
demographic composition of the U.S. labor force over the last 50 years. With higher birth rates and
higher labor force participation rates, Hispanics have become an increasingly large share of the
workforce, accounting for nearly 9.0 percent of the labor force in 1990, 12.0 percent in 2000, and 15.0
percent in 2010 and are projected to account for 19.0 percent in 20201 and 30.0 percent by 2050.' The
racial composition of the labor force has changed as well. Whites accounted for 78.0 percent of the
labor force in 1990, 72.0 percent in 2000, and 67.5 percent in 2010 and are projected to account for
only 62.0 percent in 2020.- Although immigration rates have slowed since 2005, foreign-born adults
still comprised 42.0 percent of total labor force growth between then and 2010 and account for 16.4
percent of the total civilian labor force in the United States in 2012 (up from 5.0 percent in 1970 and
9.0 percent in 1990).4
Concurrent with the growing diversity of the labor force is an increase in research to investigate
whether and how employment trends and job characteristics differ across race and ethnic groups and
between foreign-born and U.S.-born populations. Studies that have focused on employed adults have
found evidence of a wide variation in the type of employment, occupations, and job characteristics by
race and ethnicity and nativity.6 Even within education and skill level, wage disparities exist.2 Until
recently, much of this research focused on men and on earnings.8 Studies of job quality among working
parents from a single race, ethnicity,2 or country of origin-2 exist. However, except for two recent
reports (which did not undergo peer review) that examine individual job characteristics-L (one by Glynn
on unadjusted [bivariate] rates of access to paid leave and schedule flexibility and the other by
Clemans-Cope et al. on rates of health insurance by firm size and work arrangement and by race and
ethnicity, using the 2005 CPS Contingent Work Supplement), few studies of parental job quality focus
on race and ethnicity or immigration. To our knowledge, no large sample studies have been conducted
that nationally represent employed parents either by race and ethnicity or by immigration status or that
nationally represent foreign-born employed parents by subgroup.
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Job Characteristics among Working Parents: Differences by Race, Ethnicity, and Nativity
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