Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service

New York University

Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service

Advancing the World of Work:

Exploring Changes in Labor Markets and the Implications for Public Policy

PADM-GP.2134

Dr. Lisette M. Garcia

Course Meeting Time:

Mondays from 4:55pm-6:35pm

Contact Information:

Office: 3034 Puck Building

Phone: 212-992-8712

Email:

Office Hours: Tuesdays 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Course Description:

Work occupies our best waking hours and the nature of our work is the most significant determinant of the quality of our daily lives. This course is designed to provide a selective introduction into key topics in employment. The central focus of this course is to understand the impact that the changing structure of labor markets and workplaces themselves, will have on the world of work. The course begins with a presentation of competing theoretical perspectives of work. After being presented with theoretical and conceptual perspectives of work, we will move towards discussing the effects that social locations, such as race, gender, and ethnicity, have on labor market participation and outcomes. Finally we will explore the impact of changes to the structure of the labor market such as corporate restructuring, outsourcing and the emergence of a new economy will have on the world of work and how we can use this knowledge to inform and shape the policy process. After successful completion of this course, students will be able to give informed answers to such questions as: Why do we have increasing problems of low-wage work and poverty in a wealthy society? Can the U.S. really survive as a service economy? In what ways are women gaining equality in the workplace? What does the changing world economy mean for my future? And most importantly, what can I do to make the world of work a better place for myself and others?

Objectives:

At the conclusion of this course, students will demonstrate an understanding of the nature of work and its role in society; labor markets; fundamental theoretical perspectives used to explain employment outcomes; the impact of race and gender on workplace outcomes; and a comprehension of the changing nature of work. Specifically, students will develop their knowledge and competency of this information through 1) participation in class discussion, 2) written critiques/assessments of the required readings, and 3) a final research project.

Prerequisites:

Microeconomics (p11.1018) and Intro Statistics (p11.1011)

Suggested Texts:

Appelbaum, Eileen, Annette Bernhardt, and Richard J. Murnane. 2003. Low-wage America: How Employers are Reshaping Opportunity in the Workplace. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Osterman, Paul. 1999. Securing Prosperity. The American Labor Market: How it has Changed and What to Do About it. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Smith, Vicki. 2001. Crossing the Great Divide: Worker Risk and Opportunity in the New Economy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Other Optional Texts:

Berg, Ivar and Arne Kalleberg. 2001. Sourcebook of Labor Markets. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Borjas, George J. 2005. Labor Economics. 3rd Edition. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Kaufman, Bruce E. and Julie Hotchkiss. 2006. The Economics of Labor Markets. 7th Edition. Mason: Thomson South-Western.

Most readings will be posted on Blackboard.

Course Requirements:

Class Facilitation & Participation: 10%

This course is designed to encourage classroom participation. Throughout the semester, you are expected to complete the assigned readings before the designated class and to be prepared to discuss your thoughts, ideas, and criticism of these readings with your colleagues as the lead facilitator for the day. The quality of your class experience depends upon you being in class and actively contributing to the discussion. You will be required to facilitate class discussion twice during the semester. This will be worth 10% of your final grade and will be measured through your facilitation and through your verbal participation in class discussion on days when you are not the lead facilitator.

Reading Response Papers: 30%

You are required to complete 3 typed responses to the course readings. These response papers can correspond to the days when you are the lead facilitator. Each response should be between 2-3 pages in length and include a summary of the main points of the reading(s) and your comments on them. Papers should highlight and expand upon the major themes running across the readings or should offer a thoughtful critique of the readings assigned for that week. These responses will be evaluated based on the quality of the summary, the quality of your comments, and professionalism. These responses will be worth 30% of your final grade.

Final Project: 60%

Your final requirement in this course is a paper covering a topic related to our course theme of the impact of the changing nature of labor markets and workplaces. You should consider this an opportunity to work on a grant or policy proposal, a report to an agency, or a paper for publication, whichever falls more in line with your professional goals. You will be expected to submit a project which identifies a problem, reviews the existing literature, analyzes data, and presents the results. This assignment consists of four (4) parts: 1) an outline of your project (5%); 2) a detailed prospectus of your project (15%); 3) a peer review session of your first draft (10%); 4) the final paper (30%).

You should decide what area you would like to explore and submit an outline by the WEEK OF FEBRUARY 14th. A more detailed prospectus will be due by the WEEK OF MARCH 14th. I will review these items and offer suggestions for your next steps. Your prospectus should include identification of the problem, a brief literature review, and the proposed data source. During the WEEK OF APRIL 11th we will have peer review sessions. To facilitate the functioning of the peer review session you are required to provide 3 copies of your first draft. On APRIL 12th, we will discuss papers in our peer review groups, during this session you will be discussing your projects and your work so far and soliciting comments, feedback, ideas, critiques etc… from your group. As a peer reviewer you are expected to have read your classmates papers and provide helpful feedback on how to improve their projects. This means that prior to the session on APRIL 12th, you are expected to have read their papers and to have commented on them. The final paper is due the WEEK OF MAY 2nd in my mailbox.

Blackboard:

You must have access to the class Blackboard site at http://classes.nyu.edu/.

All announcements and course related documents will be posted on Blackboard. If you have not activated your NYU net account or have forgotten your password, you can activate or change your password at http://start.nyu.edu. Your account must be activated to access Blackboard.

Please note that some class announcements will also be distributed via email, this it is important that you actively use your NYU email account, or have appropriate forwarding set up on NYUHome https://home.nyu.edu.

Students with Disabilities:

Any student requiring accommodations should contact me to make proper arrangements. Please be prepared to share your documentation from the NYU disabilities office regarding appropriate accommodations.

Statement of Academic Integrity:

As members of the NYU Wagner community, we are all expected to adhere to high standards of intellectual and academic integrity. The NYU Wagner statement on academic integrity is available at http://wagner.nyu.edu/current/policies/.This is a good resource for issues of academic honesty.

In brief, all assignments must be the sole work of the individual student. Violations of these standards will automatically result in all participating students failing the course and being remanded to the Discipline Committee for further action.

Course Outline:

Readings and written assignments should be completed before the class for which they are listed.

January 25th – Introduction to Advancing the World of Work

During this first few week of the semester, class time will be devoted to an introduction of the central theme of the course. We being with an introduction to the relationship between social structure and labor markets, a careful consideration of what labor markets are, how they are shaped, and the impact they have on opportunities for individuals.

Required Readings:

Granovetter, Mark. 2005. The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes. Journal of Economic Perspectives 19 (1): 33-50.

Kalleberg, Arne and Aage B. Sorensen. 1979. The Sociology of Labor Markets. Annual Review of Sociology 5:351-379.

Lie, John. 1997. Sociology of Markets. Annual Review of Sociology 23: 341-354.

Optional Reading:

Kaufman, Bruce E. and Julie Hotchkiss. 2006. The Economics of Labor Markets. 7th Edition. Mason: Thomson South-Western, Chapter 1.

February 1st – Theoretical and Conceptual Perspectives of Work

For the next two weeks, we will explore some of the most common theoretical perspectives available to us for understanding the dynamics of the labor market. The focus of these two weeks is to provide a background of the most commonly cited explanations for how labor markets shape life outcomes for the individuals who work in them.

Required Readings:

Ben-Porath, Yoram. 1967. The Production of Human Capital and the Life Cycle of Earnings. Journal of Political Economy 75:352-365.

Poletaev, Maxim and Chris Robinson. 2008. Human Capital Specificity: Evidence from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and Displaced Worker Surveys, 1984-2000. Journal of Labor Economics 26:387-420.

Optional Readings:

Spence, Michael. 1973. Job Market Signaling. Quarterly Journal of Economics 87: 355-374.

Borjas, George J. 2005. Labor Economics. 3rd Edition. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, Chapters 2,4-5.

Kaufman, Bruce E. and Julie Hotchkiss. 2006. The Economics of Labor Markets. 7th Edition. Mason: Thomson South-Western, Chapter 3-4,6-7,9.

Blalock, H. M. 1956. “Economic Discrimination and Negro Increase.” American Sociological Review, 21:584-588.

February 8th – Theoretical and Conceptual Perspectives of Work continued

Required Readings:

Bridges, William P. and Wayne J. Villemez. 1991. "Employment Relations and the Labor Market: Integrating Institutional and Market Perspectives". American Sociological Review, 56: 748-764.

Semyonov, Moshe, Rebeca Raijman and Anat Yom-Tov. 2002. “Labor Market Competition, Perceived Threat, and Endorsement of Economic Discrimination against Foreign Workers in Israel.” Social Problems, 49: 416-431.

Optional Readings:

Berg, Ivar (ed.) 1981. Sociological Perspectives on Labor Markets. New York: Academic Press.

Blau, Peter M. and Otis Dudley Duncan with Andrea Tyree. 1967. The American Occupational Structure. New York: Wiley and Sons, Chapters 1,2, & 5

February 15th – Race, Labor Markets and Discrimination

Armed with our theoretical tools, we will now turn the focus of the course to more substantive topics. The goal of this week’s class is to focus on the interaction of race and the labor market. Our discussion will focus primarily on the continuing significance of race as an influential mechanism on labor market outcomes, specifically through employment discrimination. Outlines are due today.

Required Readings:

Bertrand, Marianne and Sendhil Mullainathan. 2004. Are Greg and Emily More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination. American Economic Review 94: 991-1013.

Guiliano, Laura, David I. Levine, and Jonathan Leonard. 2009. “Manager Race and the Race of New Hires. Journal of Labor Economics 27: 589-631.

Herring, Cedric. 2002. “Is Job Discrimination Dead?” Contexts, Summer 2002 1,2:13-18.

Fernandez, Roberto M. and Isabel Fernandez-Mateo. 2006. “Networks, Race, and Hiring.” American Sociological Review 71: 42-71.

Optional Readings:

Coleman, Major G. 2002. “Contesting the Magic of the Market-place: Black Employment

and Business Concentration in the Urban Context.: Urban Studies, 39(10): 1793-1818.

Cummings, Scott. 1987. “Vulnerability to the Effects of Recession: Minority and Female Workers”. Social Forces, 65:3, 834-857.

Kaplan, David H. 1999. "The Uneven Distribution of Employment Opportunities:

Neighborhood and Race in Cleveland, Ohio." Journal of Urban Affairs, 21(2): 189-212.

Mason, Patrick. “Understanding Recent Empirical Evidence on Race and Labor Market

Outcomes in the USA.” Review of Social Economy, 58, (3): 319-338.

McCall, Leslie. 2001. “Sources of Racial Wage Inequality in Metropolitan Labor

Markets: Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Differences.” American Sociological Review, 66(4): 520-541.

Petersen, Trond and Ishak Saporta. 2004. The Opportunity Structure for Discrimination. American Journal of Sociology 109: 852-901.

February 22nd – Gender, Employment and Discrimination

In this week we shift our focus from the continuing significance of racial discrimination to gender discrimination in employment. Similar to our discussion in the previous week, we explore why gender continues to be a relevant mechanism in shaping labor market opportunities for some.

Required Readings:

Cotter, David, Joan Hermsen, and Reeve Vanneman. 2003. “The Effects of Occupational

Gender Segregation Across Race.” Sociological Quarterly, 44: 17-36.

Maume, David J. 1999. “Glass Ceilings and Glass Escalators” Work and Occupations, 26(4):483-509.

McLafferty, Sara and Valerie Preston. “Spatial Mismatch and Labor Market Segmentation for African-American and Latina Women.” Economic Geography, 68:406-431.

Optional Readings:

Correll, Shelly J., Stephen Benard and In Paik. 2007. Getting a Job: Is there a Motherhood Penalty?” American Journal of Sociology 112: 1297-1338.

Goldin, Claudia. 2006. “The Quiet Revolution that Transformed Women’s Employment, Education and Family. American Economic Review 96: 1-21.

Jacobs, Jerry A. 1989. Long-term Trends in Occupational Segregation by Sex. American Journal of Sociology 95: 160-173.

England, Paula. 2005. “Gender Inequality in Labor Markets: The Role of Motherhood and Segregation. Social Politics 12: 264-288.

Kaufman, Robert L. 2002. “Assessing Alternative Perspectives on Race and Sex Employment Segregation.” American Sociological Review, 67:547-572.

Petersen, Trond and Laurie A. Morgan. 1995. “Separate and Unequal: Occupation-Establishment Sex Segregation and Gender Wage Gap.” American Journal of Sociology 101: 329-365.

Reskin, Barbara F., Debra B. McBrier, and Julie A. Kmec. 1999. The Determinants and Consequences of Workplace Sex and Race Composition. Annual Review of Sociology, 25: 335-61.

Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald. 1993. “The Gender and Race Composition of Jobs and the Male/Female, White/Black Pay Gaps.” Social Forces, 72: 45-76.

March 1st – The New Immigrant Worker

As the demographics of the American population continue to diversify, so too will the American workforce. Therefore a complete understanding of how labor markets are changing requires us to explore the role immigration plays in those changes. This week we will focus on immigrant incorporation into labor markets and the workforce.