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1. Contract Employment: Measurement and Implications for Employer–Employee Relationships

   https://doi.org/10.1177/00197939221132530  

   Osterman, Paul (January 2022, ILR Review)

   This article utilizes a new nationally representative survey, executed in January 2020, that measures non-standard work. The author estimates the incidence of contract company employment and freelancing and describes who goes into non-standard employment. He then studies earnings and access to employer-provided training among contract company employees—the largest and most mis-measured group of non-standard workers. Training is important because it affects wage growth and career trajectories and also gives insight into the evolving character of employment relationships. Findings indicate that contract company employees face an earnings penalty but that considerable heterogeneity occurs within this category. The analysis of multiple forms of formal training finds that contract company employees receive less training than do standard employees even after multiple controls. Informal training is more textured due to the nature of social interactions inherent in its availability. Throughout the analysis, racial and ethnic disparities are apparent. 

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2. Balancing Power Dynamics in Smart Homes: Nannies' Perspectives on How Cameras Reflect and Affect Relationships

   Bernd, Julia; Abu-Salma, Ruba; Choy, Junghyun; Frik, Alisa (January 2022, Proceedings of the Eighteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2022))

   Smart home cameras raise privacy concerns in part because they frequently collect data not only about the primary users who deployed them but also other parties -- who may be targets of intentional surveillance or incidental bystanders. Domestic employees working in smart homes must navigate a complex situation that blends privacy and social norms for homes, workplaces, and caregiving. This paper presents findings from 25 semi-structured interviews with domestic childcare workers in the U.S. about smart home cameras, focusing on how privacy considerations interact with the dynamics of their employer-employee relationships. We show how participants’ views on camera data collection, and their desire and ability to set conditions on data use and sharing, were affected by power differentials and norms about who should control information flows in a given context. Participants’ attitudes about employers’ cameras often hinged on how employers used the data; whether participants viewed camera use as likely to reinforce negative tendencies in the employer-employee relationship; and how camera use and disclosure might reflect existing relationship tendencies. We also suggest technical and social interventions to mitigate the adverse effects of power imbalances on domestic employees’ privacy and individual agency. 

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3. Gender gap in STEM entrepreneurship: Effects of the Affordable Care Act reform

   https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3594  

   Bao, Jiayi (February 2024, Strategic Management Journal)

   Abstract Research SummaryThis article examines whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance reform reduced the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) entrepreneurship. I argue that the ACA mitigated mobility constraints imposed by employer‐provided health insurance and encouraged entrepreneurship with important contingencies: effects were limited to women because of gender differences in supply‐side cost reduction and demand‐side health insurance needs and were specific to women in STEM (vs. non‐STEM) entrepreneurship because of the human and financial capital needed to navigate insurance markets. Leveraging the ACA quasi‐experiment, I find consistent evidence of a reduced gender gap in STEM entrepreneurship. Surprisingly, the effects were driven by increased STEM entrepreneurship for married women founding unincorporated businesses. Qualitative interview insights and empirical findings provide explanations for these patterns. Managerial SummaryThis study examines whether the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) entrepreneurial gender gap can be reduced by institutional factors mitigating labor market mobility constraints imposed by employer‐provided work benefits. Through the lens of the US ACA reform, I find that broadened access to more affordable health insurance in the alternative individual insurance markets disproportionately encouraged female (vs. male) STEM (vs. non‐STEM) entrepreneurship, thus reducing the STEM entrepreneurial gender gap. Contrary to common assumptions, this effect is driven by married (vs. unmarried) women and is in unincorporated (vs. incorporated) self‐employment. The findings help discern which groups benefit from policy efforts to promote diversity in STEM entrepreneurship and imply that the effectiveness of employer‐provided work benefits as retention tools is dependent on various worker characteristics. 

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4. How American Adults Obtain Work Skills: Results of a New National Survey

   https://doi.org/10.1177/00197939211018191  

   Osterman, Paul (May 2022, ILR Review)

   Employer-provided training is an important determinant of economic outcomes, yet our understanding of its extent and distribution is well out of date—with the most recent national survey being from 2008. This article updates our understanding of employer-provided training through a 2020 nationally representative survey of 3,648 working civilian adults between the ages of 24 and 64. Results show that while employer-provided training is reasonably extensive, considerable disparities occur along the lines of race, ethnicity, and educational attainment. Additionally, the author contributes to the literature by making clear distinctions among types of employment—standard, contract (those employed by a contract company but working onsite at another firm), and freelancer (those with no employer per se). Contract workers receive considerably less employer training than do employees who work under standard arrangements. Findings are robust to a range of job skill measures as well as skill specificity. The author also examines the relationship between employer-provided training and whether people seek out training on their own and shows that the inequalities in access to employer-provided training are accentuated with self-directed training. 

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5. Remote/hybrid work in flux: work-place/preference mismatch and adaptations

   https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf035  

   Fan, Wen; Moen, Phyllis (February 2025, Social Forces)

   Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic led to an unprecedented employer-driven shift to remote/hybrid work for those whose jobs allow it, but then came retrenchments, forging disjunctures between where one works (remote/hybrid or in-person) and individual preferences, which we term work-place mismatch. We draw on a combined worker power, employer biases, and adaptive strategy theoretical framing to investigate work-place mismatch in light of remarkable pandemic-precipitated shifts in place of work, opening up possibilities (and preferences) for remote/hybrid arrangements. In addition to examining inequities in work-place mismatch, we theorize employees’ possible adaptive strategies when confronting such mismatch—shifting where they work, changing their locational preferences, or intending to leave or actually leaving their employer. Using a nationally representative four-wave panel (October 2020–April 2022) of US employees who worked fully or partially remotely during the pandemic, we find that work-place mismatch is widespread, especially among those returning to on-site work. Hispanics, Black men, and those lacking a college degree are most likely to experience unfulfilled interest (mismatch) in remote work. Structurally disadvantaged mismatched workers also experience constrained strategies—less apt to change their work location or quit relative to white or college-educated workers. 

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