Restructuring opportunity: employment change and job quality in the United States during the Great Recession

Abstract

Abstract Research continues to stress the influence job polarization has had on employment and economic opportunity in the USA. However, much of this literature is based on studies focused on time periods of economic expansion, and the knowledge base lacks a nuanced understanding of structural employment change during economic downturns and the temporally and spatially distinctive dynamics of such shifts. Using an innovative methodology for measuring job quality, the study provides an empirical analysis of employment shifts that occurred during the Great Recession both quantitatively (how many jobs created or destroyed) as well as qualitatively (what types of jobs created or destroyed). A notable feature of the shifts observed in the employment structure during this time period is a deepening pattern of inequality in the labor market characterized by increased wage polarization for all workers and evidence of downgrading experienced by male workers across all three measures of job quality.