The U.S. labor market has recently seen both increased income inequality and proliferation of low-wage jobs. Some contend that a driving force behind these developments is increased financialization of the economy. This argument holds that pressures stemming from shareholders, financial institutions, and financialized management strategies have altered the way firms and managers structure jobs, potentially diminishing firm investments in human capital and eroding job quality in favor of increased profits. Thus, short-term financial considerations have displaced more far-sighted management approaches that are beneficial to both workers and firms. Despite the frequency of these assertions, supporting data are scarce. This project evaluates these arguments by conducting a nationally representative survey of business establishments across three industries. The data will be used to test whether variation in job structure and quality are related to variation in measures of financialization. The project speaks to societal concerns regarding economic inequality and changes in the distribution of high- and low-wage jobs in the U.S. economy. This information will be of interest to policymakers concerned with job and economic growth both nationally and at the state and local levels.
This project will construct a nationally representative survey of establishments in three industries that are part of matched firms that have been subjected to greater and lesser levels of financialization, with a targeted sample size of 1,200-1,600 establishments. These industries include: 1) professional, scientific, and technical services; 2) computer and electronic manufacturing; and 3) retail. This choice of industries allows for focused attention on how financialization pressures affect science and technology workers and how these pressures differ from those found in other industries. The survey will ask detailed questions about job quality and structure, including questions about wages, contingent labor, skill demands, job tenure, training, and promotion policies. The target respondents are human resource managers who are employed at the randomly-selected business establishments. The establishment survey will be linked with lagged firm-level indicators of financialization, corporate governance, and shareholder ownership drawn from several business databases used in prior research. The uniqueness of the survey data will allow analyses of relationships between firm-level indicators and establishment-level work outcomes.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
