Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Labor Force”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 343 records · Page 19Linked to original sources
PubMed2000

Tracking the majority: households, older workers, and retirement during the Great Depression.

OBJECTIVES: Well into the 20th century, elderly people relied on traditional means of support, such as children's financial contributions or continued labor force activity. After the institution of Social Security in the late 1930s, retirement--permanent withdrawal from the labor force with financial arrangements made for support--became an expected part of the life cycle of men 65 years and older in the United States. This research explores the extent of retirement and methods to finance it in the period just before Social Security became available. METHODS: The 1935-1936 Study of Consumer Purchases (SCP) contains information on demographic and economic conditions for 5,975 households. The SCP is a rich but underutilized source of data on household behavior. The data allow two definitions of labor force activity to be constructed; descriptive statistics identify factors associated with retirement. RESULTS: Alternative sources of support, such as pensions and investment income, have been thought to be relatively insignificant before the 1940s. This article shows that retirement in the modern sense appeared before state provision of support for aged persons. SCP data indicate considerable reliance on such financial instruments, a particularly noteworthy result given Depression conditions. Pension and investment income also helps identify persons who might report a gainful occupation but appear to have withdrawn from labor force activity, meeting a modern definition of retirement. DISCUSSION: The SCP, collected just as Social Security was enacted, reveals that nonfamilial sources of income like pensions and investments had begun to underwrite retirement without dependence on family members. Many older persons relied on these instruments for support in old age, and many did not have children present in their households. These results constitute evidence for an independent, nonfamily-based retirement before governmental provision of assistance through Social Security.

Aged↗
PubMed1980

Allocation of time and resources by married couples approaching retirement.

The work and retirement decisions of husbands and wives are likely to be made jointly as they allocate their available resources. This article models the allocation of family wealth and family members' time over the lifetime of the unit. The first section reports simulation results that illustrate the relationship between the value of members' time in both market work and the production of home services. The model is then tested by means of the Retirement History Study for 1969-73. The estimation is conducted by employing a simultaneous logit model of labor-force participation by the husband and wife. Principal findings are: (1) Individuals respond positively to increases in their own wage rate but tend to reduce labor-force participation as the wage rate of their spouse increases, (2) the health of the husband is an important determinant of his labor-force participation, and (3) the probability that a person will be in the labor force is raised if the spouse is employed.

Aged↗
PubMed1975

Female professional work opportunities: a cross-national study.

While economic development has been associated with increased participation of females in the labor force, it remains problematic whether sexual equality within the labor force has also increased. This study examines the differentiation of structural variables, specifically economic and demographic variables, on female participation and sexual equality within a specific sector of the labor force: the professions. The units of analysis are primarily European countries with the inclusion of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The findings indicate that those economic development factors (female higher education enrollment rate and professional demand) significantly related to the female professional participation rate are distinct from those structural factors (economic growth rate, working age male deficiency) affecting sexual equality within the professional sector.

Australia↗
PubMed1996

The role of bridge jobs in the retirement transition: gender, race, and ethnicity.

We used the first wave of the new Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to document the importance of transitional stages--bridge jobs--between career employment and complete labor force withdrawal in the early 1990s. We describe the labor force status of a sample of about 9,500 older Americans with some work experience after age 49, and the transition patterns of those for whom we can identify a career job. We observe significant bridge job activity, including part-time work and movement between self-employment and wage-and-salary jobs. Subsequent waves of the HRS will permit researchers to follow this large sample through the labor force withdrawal process and to analyze the determinants and consequences of alternative retirement routes.

Employment↗
PubMed2006

Employment barriers for persons with psychiatric disabilities: update of a report for the President's Commission.

A major public policy problem is the extremely low labor force participation of people with severe mental illness coupled with their overrepresentation on the public disability rolls. This situation is especially troubling given the existence of evidence-based practices designed to return them to the labor force. This article reviews research from the fields of disability, economics, health care, and labor studies to describe the nature of barriers to paid work and economic security for people with disabling mental disorders. These barriers include low educational attainment, unfavorable labor market dynamics, low productivity, lack of appropriate vocational and clinical services, labor force discrimination, failure of protective legislation, work disincentives caused by state and federal policies, poverty-level income, linkage of health care access to disability beneficiary status, and ineffective work incentive programs. The article concludes with a discussion of current policy initiatives in health care, mental health, and disability. Recommendations for a comprehensive system of services and supports to address multiple barriers are presented. These include access to affordable health care, including mental health treatment and prescription drug coverage; integrated clinical and vocational services; safe and stable housing that is not threatened by changes in earned income; remedial and postsecondary education and vocational training; benefits counseling and financial literacy education; economic security through asset development; legal aid for dealing with employment discrimination; peer support and self-help to enhance vocational self-image and encourage labor force attachment; and active involvement of U.S. business and employer communities.

Achievement↗
PubMed1997

Retirement against the demographic trend: more older people living longer, working less, and saving less.

The American population is aging rapidly and individuals are living longer. Yet Americans are saving less and older workers are leaving the labor force at younger and younger ages. The accelerated drop in labor force participation corresponds roughly to the introduction of Social Security and the adaptation of employer-provided pension plans. I have illustrated that Social Security and employer-provided pension plans provide substantial incentive to leave the labor force early. The quantitative effect of this inducement is illustrated by simulating the effects of changes in pension plan and Social Security provisions on the retirement decisions of employees in a large firm, who are covered by a typical defined benefit pension plan. Scheduled Social Security changes would have little effect on the retirement decisions of employees with a typical defined benefit pension plan like the one considered here. But if the pension plan provisions were changed to correspond to the Social Security changes, the effect would be very large. And, although not contemplated by current legislation; it is clear that an increase in the Social Security early retirement age would have a substantial effect on the early retirement rates of the large number of employees not covered by a pension plan.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Work transitions and health in later life.

OBJECTIVES: The goal of the analysis was to examine the association between health status and work behavior among men aged 55-69. We specifically examined the conditions under which health is most strongly associated with labor force exit and reentry. METHODS: The association between health and labor force transitions was examined using logistic regression analyses, based on data from the 1984 and 1985 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. RESULTS: We found that for men aged 55-69 in the mid-1980s, poor health was positively associated with labor force exit, and negatively associated with returns to work. Although these main effects are very strong, we found that health was particularly important among individuals for whom retirement was least attractive. Health had its most substantial association with work transitions among men with working wives, as well as among men who were younger, or who had limited nonwork financial resources. Health also had a particularly strong association with work transitions among Black men, but only with reference to reentry decisions. DISCUSSION: Our results suggest that continued work may have limited appeal for men who are prepared for retirement, even when they are in excellent health.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1985

Overurbanization and underdevelopment in sub-Saharan Africa: a cross-national study.

"This paper discusses both the urban bias and world-system theories of overurbanization and presents a cross-national analysis of 32 African nations to test these perspectives. The analysis is divided into three parts. First, the effects of urban bias (i.e., the disparity in welfare between rural and urban areas) and economic dependence on overurbanization are examined. Next, the association between overurbanization and (1) the structure of the labor force and (2) economic growth is tested. Finally, the relationship between the structure of the labor force and economic growth is evaluated." The results indicate that "the rural-urban disparity and foreign investment facilitate overurbanization, and that an increase in level of overurbanization has a deleterious impact on both the structure of the labor force and economic growth. Furthermore, there is strong evidence indicating that an increase in service-sector employment has a negative effect on economic growth."

Africa↗
PubMed2002

To work or not to work: combination therapies and HIV.

The authors describe the labor force experiences of people living with HIV and AIDS (PHAs) who are taking combination therapies using information from in-depth interviews conducted in 1999 and 2000 in the Windsor and Essex County region of Canada with 35 PHAs. They analyze labor force experience contextually, setting it within the contexts of personal illness experience (including disease trajectory and treatment history), workplace structure and discrimination, the labor market, and the structure of health and social service systems. Barriers to returning to or remaining in the labor force are numerous and require a specific commitment to overcome. Existing workplace and government policies and programs and labor market conditions impede labor force participation for PHAs who have recovered from serious illness and are now able and willing to work.

Anti-HIV Agents↗
PubMed1999

Retirement patterns and bridge jobs in the 1990s.

During most of the post-World War II period, American men have been leaving the labor force at earlier and earlier ages. Evidence suggests that this trend has been under way for more than a century. However, in the mid-1980s, this trend came to an abrupt halt. Male labor force participation rates have been flat since 1985, and have actually increased over the past several years. Understanding these issues is especially important given the looming increase in the Social Security normal retirement age to 67 and the possibility of even more increases in the ages of eligibility under Social Security and Medicare reform. Because of the influx of married women into the labor market in the post-World War II period, older women's participation rates did not decline as men's did. In contrast, their rates were relatively steady, rising or falling very slowly. Since the mid-1980s, however, older women's participation rates have increased significantly. Many more older men and women are working today than the pre-1986 trends would have suggested. Many older Americans leave the labor force gradually, utilizing "bridge jobs" between employment on a full-time career job and complete labor force withdrawal. These bridge jobs are often part-time, often in a new line of work, and sometimes involve a switch from wage and salary work to self-employment. Estimates suggest that between one-third and one-half of older Americans will work on a bridge job before retiring completely, and for these workers retirement is best viewed as a process, not as a single event. These changes in retirement behavior are consistent with societal changes that have altered the relative attractiveness of work and leisure late in life. Mandatory retirement has been outlawed for most American workers. Social Security has become more age-neutral, no longer penalizing the average worker who wants to continue working after age 65. An increasing proportion of employer pension coverage has been in defined contribution plans, which do not contain the age-specific retirement incentives that many defined benefit plans do. The composition of jobs has shifted from manufacturing to service occupations. Americans are living longer and healthier lives, and many look forward to years to productive activity after age 65. These structural changes have been accompanied by an important cyclical factor: the strength of the American economy over the past decade. This has increased the demand for all types of labor, including older workers. Evidence suggests that there is more than this cyclical factor at work, however, and that new attitudes about work late in life are developing. Labor supply decisions late in life are correlated in expected ways with the individual's health (measured in several ways), age, and pension and health insurance status. Retirement patterns in America are much richer and more varied than the stereotypical one-step view of retirement suggests. Public policy is changing in ways that make continued work late in life more likely. If employers are willing to provide flexible job opportunities to meet the needs of these potential employees, then society can tap a growing pool of older, experienced, and willing workers for years to come.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

Work losses related to inflammatory bowel disease in the United States: results from the National Health Interview Survey.

BACKGROUND: U.S. studies using varying methodologies have reported different estimates for the indirect, or nonmedical cost per person with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Our analysis contributes to this literature by using the 1999 sample of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to estimate the work-loss effect of IBD on work in the United States and the associated cost to society. METHODS: A weighted logistic regression model was used to estimate the OR of being out of the labor force as determined by predictive variables, including having been diagnosed with IBD, with or without symptoms. Controls included health status indicators and demographic variables. For those people in the labor force, a second analysis was performed to determine the relative influence of the same variables on working less than 12 months versus the entire year. SUDAAN 8.0 was used to generate population estimates, systematically correcting for survey design. RESULTS: Of IBD patients who had experienced symptoms in the past 12 months, 31.5% reported being out of the labor force (OR = 2.14, relative to the non-IBD group). We estimated the excess in the nonparticipation rate attributable to IBD with symptoms in the past 12 months in the United States to be 12.3%. Based on this, the indirect cost of nonparticipation attributable to IBD in 1998/1999 was more than $3.6 billion U.S. dollars (USD) or $5228 USD per person with IBD and symptoms. According to the second weighted logistic regression, for those who are in the labor force, having IBD had no association with the duration of work. CONCLUSIONS: By using directly observed data in our analysis, this method of estimation can be used to predict the overall paid-employment burden of IBD.

Absenteeism↗
PubMed1981

U.S. women at work.

Women made up 43% of the U.S. labor force in 1980, up from 29% in 1950, and 52% of all women 16 and over were working or looking for work compared to 34% in 1950. The surge in women's employment is linked to more delayed marriage, divorce, and separation, women's increased education, lower fertility, rapid growth in clerical and service jobs, inflation, and changing attitudes toward "woman's place." Employment has risen fastest among married women, especially married mothers of children under 6, 45% of whom are now in the labor force. Some 44% of employed women now work fulltime the year round, but still average only $6 for every $10 earned by men working that amount. This is partly because most women remain segregated in low paying "women's jobs" with few chances for advancement. Among fulltime workers, women college graduates earn less than male high school dropouts. Working wives were still spending 6 times more time on housework than married men in 1975 and working mothers of preschool children are also hampered by a severe lack of daycare facilities. Children of working women, however, appear to develop normally. Equal employment opportunity and affirmative action measures have improved the climate for working women but not as much as for minorities. The federal income tax and social security systems still discriminate against 2 income families. Woman's position in the U.S. labor force should eventually improve with the inroads women are making in some male-dominated occupations and gains in job experience and seniority among younger women who now tend to stay in the labor force through the years of childbearing and early childrearing, unlike women in the 1950s and 1960s.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1987

Asian labour mobility: new dimensions and implications for development.

The author "argues that the rise of organized labour migration has introduced a new structural feature in the international labour market.... This new factor....contributes to making labour supply highly elastic during upswings in demand for expatriate labour....[and] makes for inelasticity during periods of weakening demand because of its 'stockpiling effect' on labour supply." The impacts on migrants' wages and on the labor forces of labor-exporting countries are considered. The focus is on Asian labor migration to the Middle East. Separate comments by M. Irfan and Nadeem A. Burney are included (pp. 378-81).

Africa↗
PubMed1996

The impact on unemployment of an intervention to increase recognition of previously untreated anxiety among primary care physicians.

Anxiety is a common, though often unrecognized, problem in primary care settings. This study examines the effect on employment of an intervention designed to attune primary care physicians to previously unrecognized and untreated anxiety. Primary care physicians in a mixed-model health maintenance organization (HMO) were randomized by practice site to groups with (intervention) and without (usual care) intensive one-on-one education about anxiety and periodic feedback about their patients with anxiety. All persons 21-65 years of age presenting to the offices of these primary care providers were screened for anxiety with the SCL-90-R on two occasions. Those meeting the SCL-90-R cutpoints for anxiety and whose medical records provided no evidence of recognition or treatment for a mental health condition within the last 6 months were eligible for the study (n = 637). Of these, 573 (90%) completed two follow-up assessments. The present study evaluates the impact of the intervention aimed at the primary care physicians on the labor force participation rate of the persons with anxiety after 5 months of follow-up. The study also evaluates the impact of the intervention on hours of work and the presence of days spent in bed among the persons with anxiety working at the baseline interview and after 5 months. At baseline, the patients of intervention and usual care physicians with previously unrecognized and untreated anxiety did not differ in labor force participation rates. At the conclusion of the study, the patients of the intervention group physicians had significantly lower rates of labor force participation than those of the usual care group physicians. Among those working both at the beginning and conclusion of the study, the intervention had no impact on hours of work or the presence of days spent in bed. We conclude that attuning physicians may reduce labor force participation rates.

Absenteeism↗
PubMed1985

The labour market experiences of Canadian immigrants.

The economic adaptation of immigrants to Canada is analyzed using government data on the labor force and landed immigrants. In particular, the labor force experience of a sample of immigrants in Canada is examined and compared with that of a Canadian cohort with regard to length of unemployment and income. "Differences in unemployment and insurable earnings are examined by age, sex, immigrant category..., world area of last permanent residence, official language abilities, education, and region of residence." (summary in FRE, SPA)

Age Factors↗
PubMed1991

New accounts of the rural population and our strategy.

Some new population issues and problems are emerging in the rural areas of China, of which the 6 major problems are: 1) family as both a production and consumption unit has strengthened its material production function, 1 of the 2 basic functions of the family, of which the other is human reproduction function; 2) new demands for labor force production emerging from production at household level and growth of the rural commodity economy have stimulated the rural population reproduction; 3) low level of the rural productive forces does not require high level of labor force; 4) masses of the rural population floating to 1st and 2nd industry has created a "Dead Corner" for family planning; 5) no coordination of the family planning; and 6) there is evidence that the fertility rate will "spring up". In order to control population growth and cope with these new population issues in the rural areas, some strategies and actions should be made or taken, including: 1) all communities should act together to create an atmosphere of family planning by all people; 2) strictly carry out the present family planning policy and arouse rural people's enthusiasm to participate in family planning programs by related policies; 3) set up effective social welfare systems and develop family planning and health at all levels should provide more services to people who need family planning; and 5) set up "Family Planning Regulations" as soon as possible in order to carry out family planning more effectively.

Asia↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Life expectancy by employment status, income, and education in the National Longitudinal Mortality Study.

Based on data from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study for 1979-85, life expectancies are estimated for white men and white women by education, by family income, and by employment status. Life expectancy varies directly with amount of schooling and with family income. Differences in life expectancy at age 25 between the highest and the lowest levels of education completed were about 6 years for white men and about 5 years for white women. For family income, differences between the highest and the lowest income groups were about 10 years for white men and 4.3 years for white women. The largest differences in life expectancy were between employment categories. At age 25, white men in the labor force lived on average about 12 more years than those not in the labor force, and white women lived on average about 9 more years. For those who were unable to work compared with those in the labor force, the difference for white men was about 20 years; for white women, 29 years. Results in this study showed much the same differentials in life expectancy for education as the earlier Kitagawa-Hauser study.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Racial, ethnic, and gender differences in smoking cessation associated with employment and joblessness through young adulthood in the US.

The dynamics of labor force participation and joblessness during young adulthood influence access to social and material resources and shape exposure to different sources of psychosocial strain. Differences in these dynamics by race, ethnicity, and gender are related to changes in a behavioral determinant of poor health (tobacco use) for young adults aging into midlife. Using discrete-time hazards models, we estimate the relationship between labor force participation in the past year and smoking cessation for US adults (ages 14-21 years in 1979) followed in a population-representative sample until 1998 (i.e. the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth). We assess the unique role of racial, ethnic and gender differences in exposure, vulnerability, and reactivity to employment and joblessness by controlling for social and economic resources obtained through working and by controlling for early life factors that select individuals into certain labor force and smoking trajectories. There are three main findings: (1) joblessness is more strongly associated with persistent daily smoking among women than among men; (2) fewer social and economic resources for women out of the labor force compared to employed women explains their lower cessation rates; and (3) lower cessation among unemployed women compared to employed women can only partially be explained by these resources. These findings illustrate how differential access to work-related social and economic resources is an important mediator of poor health trajectories. Contextual factors such as social norms and psychosocial strains at work and at home may play a unique role among European American men and women in explaining gender differences in smoking.

Adolescent↗