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Down but Not Out: Material Responses of Unemployed and Underemployed Workers during the Great Depression and Great Recession

Kosla, Martin Thomas
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1460219207

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Sociology.
For decades the study of unemployment has been dominated by psychologists and economists and has largely been overlooked by sociologists. When the world economy entered a period of prolonged economic decline in the fall of 2007, this began to change. During this period many workers found themselves facing extreme economic hardship as they were involuntarily unemployed for extended periods of time. Yet even as the Great Recession forced sociologists to rediscover the topic of unemployment, most of this research followed the traditions set forth by economists and psychologists by focusing on macro-level factors associated with the decline or the psychological responses of unemployed workers. While this research is important, it provides little insight into the lived experiences of unemployed workers and their families. In the following paper I begin addressing this gap by utilizing qualitative methods to explore the lived experiences of unemployed and underemployed workers during two of the most devastating economic collapses in U.S. history: the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Data on the experiences of workers during the Great Recession come from eighty-four semi-structured interviews with displaced workers in Columbus, OH conducted between 2012 and 2013. In contrast, the experiences of unemployed workers during the Great Depression are explored using research conducted by E. Wight Bakke and his team during the 1930s. The current analysis focuses primarily on the material responses of workers during both periods. Material responses are conceptualized as the strategies individuals and families employ in order to maintain their standard of living in the face of economic hardship. Given the substantial technological, industrial, and institutional changes that have occurred since the start of the Great Depression, one would expect there to be significant differences in the material responses of workers during both periods. Yet, the current analysis discovers that this is not the case. Instead, unemployed and underemployed workers during both periods relied on a combination of wages, familial and social resources, and social assistance. These similarities stand in stark contrast to the contemporary conservative rhetoric of an overly generous welfare state, as this ideological lens suggests that the modern social safety net would have protected displaced workers from nearly all of the hardship. Instead, social assistance during both periods is found to be lacking. Instead of being overly generous, a critical analysis of the experiences of workers finds it to be quite miserly in terms of duration, generosity, and availability. Moreover, the contemporary system is also found to be extremely unequal, favoring middle-class workers over working-class workers.
Steven Lopez (Advisor)
Rachel Dwyer (Committee Member)
Vincent Roscigno (Committee Member)
165 p.
Social Research; Sociology
Sociology, Unemployment, Unemployed Workers, Work, Inequality, Stratification, Social Safety Net, Public Safety Net, Welfare, Material Responses, Social Class, History, Great Depression, Great Recession, Public Policy

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kosla, M. T. (2016). Down but Not Out: Material Responses of Unemployed and Underemployed Workers during the Great Depression and Great Recession [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1460219207

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kosla, Martin. Down but Not Out: Material Responses of Unemployed and Underemployed Workers during the Great Depression and Great Recession. 2016. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1460219207.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kosla, Martin. "Down but Not Out: Material Responses of Unemployed and Underemployed Workers during the Great Depression and Great Recession." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1460219207

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1460219207
914
© 2016, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.