The Human Effects of Underemployment

Bibliographic Data

ID2484403
AuthorsBeverly H Burris (Trinity University, corresponding author)
Year1983
Volume31
Issue1
Pages96-110
Publication date1983-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Problems (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-7791 • E-ISSN: 1533-8533
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/800412
OpenAlexW1993259421
LanguageEN
Citations received28
References cited30

More and more workers in the United States are unable to use their educational background on the job. Such underemployment has been documented but not fully explored or analyzed. This paper examines the effects of underemployment on 32 low-level clerical workers, comparing their educational backgrounds with their at-titudes and behaviors. Higher education produces increased job dissatisfaction, higher turnover rates, reduced job involvement, impaired co-worker relations, and more emphasis on future aspirations. However, clerical workers of all educational backgrounds are prone to feelings of overqualification and complaints about the nature of workplace control. I relate these findings to existing theories on underemployment. Relying on educational expansion as a means of social and individual advancement has begun to have diminishing returns, and perhaps counterproductive results, in the United States. The phenomenon of overeducation/underemployment, understood as inadequate use of education on the job, has become more pronounced in the last two decades. Documenting its intensifica-tion, however, is complicated by the fact that defining underemployment is not a simple or

Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Labour economics · Library science · Social science · Sociology · Underemployment · Unemployment · Computer Science · Emotional Labor in Professions · Employment and Welfare Studies · Labor Movements and Unions

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub