Laid Off, Laid Low: Political And Economic Consequences Of Employment Insecurity (A Columbia / Ssrc Book (Privatization Of Risk)

Laid Off, Laid Low provides a sobering portrait of the ailing American labor system and the social and political consequences of increasing job insecurity. It proves that the health of the labor market is not a transitory issue brought low by the factors of recession, but a serious concern reflecting deep structural problems in American society. In this book, economists, sociologists, and public policy and political scientists reveal how the American labor market has grown particularly problematic for new jobseekers, trends that are not obvious when averaging the entire population. The contributors to this volume focus instead on changing job patterns between generations, which show that the job prospects for young Americans are more shortterm than their predecessors, and that whitecollar managers, once members of the most privileged sector, are now experiencing a faster negative rate of change. As this book makes clear, Americans will soon face epic job losses, irreversible trends in downward mobility, and longlasting economic insecuritypolitically polarizing outcomes that will cause even more anxiety among families. Encompassing a number of different disciplines, the prominent scholars of Laid Off, Laid Low provide a full analysis of today's most pressing economic issues.Contributors: Sheldon Danziger and Ben Keys: 'Unemployment Risk among Low Wage Workers: 19702000'; Hank Farber: 'Employment Insecurity: The Decline in WorkerFirm Attachment in the United States'; Elizabeth Jacobs and Katherine Newman: 'Rising Angst? Change and Stability in Perceptions of Insecurity'; Philipp Rehm: 'Partisan Politics and Labor Market Risks'; Ann Huff Stevens: 'Holding Firm: The Stability of LongTerm Employment in the US, 19692004'