Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-wage Labor Market - Couverture rigide

Newman, Katherine S.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0674023366 ISBN 13 : 9780674023369

Editeur : Harvard University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Now that the welfare system has been largely dismantled, the fate of America's poor depends on what happens to them in the low-wage labour market. In this timely volume, Katherine S. Newman explores whether the poorest workers and families benefited from the tight labour markets and good economic times of the late 1990s. Following black and Latino workers in Harlem, who began their work lives flipping burgers, she finds more good news than we might have expected coming out of a high-poverty neighbourhood. Many adult workers returned to school and obtained trade certificates, high school diplomas and college degrees. Their persistence paid off in the form of better jobs, higher pay and greater self-respect. Others found union jobs and, as a result, brought home bigger pay checks, health insurance, and a pension. More than 20 percent of those profiled in Chutes and Ladders are no longer poor. A very different story emerges among those who floundered even in a good economy. Weighed down by family obligations or troubled partners and hindered by poor training and prejudice, these "low riders" moved in and out of the labour market, on and off public assistance, and continued to depend upon the kindness of family and friends. Supplementing finely drawn ethnographic portraits, Newman examines the national picture to show that patterns around the country paralleled the findings from some of New York's most depressed neighbourhoods. More than a story of the shifting fortunes of the labour market, Chutes and Ladders asks probing questions about the motivations of low-wage workers, the dreams they have for the future, and their understanding of the rules of the game.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Katherine S. Newman is the Malcolm Forbes Class of 1941 Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University, and the author of many prize-winning books on work and class in America.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Harvard University Press
• Date d'édition: 2006
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0674023366
• ISBN 13: 9780674023369
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 392
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Amazon EU Sarl; 0; www.amazon.com; ; 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; 0; L-1855; Luxembourg