Bad jobs in America: Standard and nonstandard employment relations and jobquality in the United States

The prevalence of nonstandard jobs is a matter of concern if; as many assum e, such jobs are bad. We examine the relationship between nonstandard emplo yment (on-call work and day labor, temporary-help agency employment, employ ment with contract companies, independent contracting, other self-employmen t, and part-time employment in "conventional" jobs) and exposure to "bad" j ob characteristics, using data from the 1995 Current Population Survey. Of workers age 18 and over, 31 percent are in some type of nonstandard employm ent. To assess the link between type of employment and bad jobs, we concept ualize "bad jobs" as those,with low pay and without access to health insura nce and pension benefits. About one in seven jobs in the United States is b ad on these three dimensions. Nonstandard employment strongly increases wor kers' exposure to bad job characteristics, net of controls for workers' per sonal characteristics, family status, occupation, and industry.