Table 1.
Description of the precarious employment (PE) dimensions and indicators used in the PE score.a [pt=point.]
| Dimensions | Item | Scoring rubric (Total ranges 0–7) |
|---|---|---|
| (1) Material rewards | (1.1) Relative wages b | 0.5 pt: total wages/salary in past year below state average in same year; otherwise 0 |
| (1.2) Paid vacation | 0.5 pt: no paid vacation offered, 0 otherwise | |
| (2) Work time arrangements | (2.1) Total hours | 0.33 pt: total hours/week worked <20 or >40, 0 otherwise |
| (2.2) Regular shift | 0.33 pt: non-regular shift, 0 if regular day shift | |
| (2.3) Fixed hours | 0.33 pt: varying hours, 0 if fixed hours | |
| (3) Stability | (3.1) Weeks employed | 0.5 pt: number of weeks worked/employed in past calendar year is <48 weeks, 0 otherwise |
| (3.2) Tenure | 0.5 pt: total tenure is <1 year with current employer, as of interview date, 0 otherwise | |
| (4) Worker’s rights c | (4.1) Health insurance | 0.5 pt: health insurance not offered by employer, 0 otherwise |
| (4.2) Retirement plan | 0.5 pt: no retirement plan (other than social security) offered by employer, 0 otherwise | |
| (5) Collective organization or empowerment c | (5.1) Union membership | 1 pt: wage not set by collective bargaining, or covered by union or employee contract, 0 otherwise |
| (6) Interpersonal relations c | (6.1) Freedomd | 1 pt: minimal freedom to make decisions without supervision (< median value), 0 otherwise |
| (7) Training and employability opportunities c | (7.1) Promotion | 0.5 pt: no promotion (or chance) since last interview, 0 otherwise |
| (7.2) Training | 0.5 pt: no on-the-job training, 0 otherwise |
The PES was created with observations from employed individuals only. Wages (1.1) and weeks employed (3.1) include information from all jobs (eg, total wages in the past year). All other indicators include information for one’s current or most recent job.
State-year sample-specific estimate, which allowed our measure to incorporate the increases in income inequality over follow-up (i.e. as income inequality increased, a smaller proportion of the sample had wages above the sample mean).
Missing data were imputed based on: age (continuous), gender (male, female), race/ethnicity (Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Other), marital status (single, married, separated, divorced, widowed), region (Northeast, Northcentral, South, and West), education (primary, secondary, undergraduate, graduate), occupation (e.g. managerial and professional) and industry (e.g. mining, utilities). For the workers’ rights and training dimensions, missing data were also imputed based on the reported items within the same domain.
Data is from the O*NET database.