Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: No abstract available.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Work is a ubiquitous feature of life in modern American society. It structures people’s time in a way paralleled by little else. Yet, despite the universality of work, there are stark differences in work experiences across segments of the American populace. Specifically, race plays a defining role in structuring how people relate to work. Almost every imaginable indicator points to the distinctive experiences of African-Americans, Asian Americans and Latinos in the workplace. Job satisfaction, job authority, wages and much more vary along lines of race, generally to the disadvantage of people of color. What are the political implications of the differential ways racialized populations experience the workplace, its benefits and its disadvantages? In this paper, I use survey data and in-depth interview data to detail the association between work and politics. I focus on the perceptions and experiences of racially and economically marginalized people in the workplace and the consequences thereof for their political attitudes and actions. While previous research has explored the relationship between work and politics, none of it has done so with an eye toward the unique experiences of marginalized people.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The concept of unpaid work provides an important avenue by which to explore historically and culturally diverse notions of work. While unpaid work has been popularized in particular by feminist scholarship on domestic labour, the term is currently being applied to a myriad of phenomena, including workfare, volunteer activities and community exchange programs. This paper explores the current literature on unpaid work and argues that it is best conceptualized in terms of two outstanding features: it is work which is in some sense obligatory or required and it is work which is undertaken elsewhere in the economy for pay. Within this broad framework, the element of coercion or compulsion which underlies unpaid work provides a crucial basis for establishing a continuum of unpaid work activities as well as a division between unpaid work and other activities. The resultant paradigm, which is compatible with both feminist and historical/materialist approaches, is suggestive of a variety of new linkages between work, unpaid work and the economic order.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper compares patterns of school enrollment, labor force participation and work intensity among four generational groups of Mexican-origin adolescents with those of 3rd-and-later generation non-Latino white and black adolescents. Consistent with perspectives viewing the school and work orientations of early-generation Mexican-origin youths as influenced by the countervailing pressures of a labor migrant culture on the one hand, and immigrant optimism on the other, I find that school enrollment and labor force participation tend to be more mutually exclusive among these youths, as compared with later-generation Mexicans, whites, and blacks. Early-generation Mexican-origin youth are less likely to pursue school and labor force participation simultaneously. Those not enrolled in school tend to participate in the labor force to a greater extent, and work more intensively than their later-generation counterparts. By contrast, those enrolled in school are likely to participate in the labor force, and work less intensively. In the paper I argue that these findings carry implications for contemporary perspectives of immigrant incorporation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper, we explore gender differences and similarities in self-rated health trajectories for NSFH men and women who advanced into middle and older age between 1987/1988 and 2001/2002. Our conceptual model acknowledges the inherent physiological differences between and among males and females as well as the impact of social experiences in a stratified and gendered world. Using latent class growth curve models, we examine both measured and latent differences in the risk of poor health over time. We find no statistically significant gender differences in self-reported health trajectories. Our models reveal subgroups of men and women who differ not only in their risk for poor health over time, but the extent to which their health is affected by their resources, relationships, and behaviors. We conclude that childhood environments, health behaviors, employment conditions, household circumstances, and psychological resources are differentially associated with the self-reported health trajectories of men and women, as well as subgroups among men and among women.