CSI’s Inequality Discussion Groups bring together Cornell faculty and graduate students from around campus to discuss and improve their in-progress research.

Diane Burton

Title: Studying Working Conditions in the Parcel Delivery Industry

Abstract: U.S. consumers have become accustomed to fast, inexpensive delivery directly to their doorstep. Yet few consider the work or the workers who are doing the deliveries. Parcel delivery is one of the fastest growing occupations open to people with only a high school education. It is also a physically demanding job with high injury rates. Delivery work relies on public roads and delivery workers are in direct contact with customers in their homes and businesses. As the so-called “last mile” delivery industry grows, there are concerns about the traffic accidents, congestion, and pollution that impact all citizens, in addition to worries about wages, job quality, and working conditions for workers.
In this session I will describe a newly awarded 3-year NSF-funded project, Last Mile Delivery. This study seeks to accurately describe the nature of the parcel delivery work, to assess the differences across organizations that employ or engage delivery workers, and to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies such as electric vehicles, dashboard cameras, vehicle sensors and digital parcel tracking, and to evaluate the role of unionization. This research will examine differences among parcel delivery vendors and management systems to inform managers, customers, present and prospective delivery workers and regulators and assist in making better choices.
The last-mile delivery industry offers a unique opportunity to compare different systems for organizing the same work and to consider how weather conditions impact working experiences. The project team is surveying a representative sample of last-mile delivery drivers in two regions in the U.S. that are comparable in geographic and labor market size and scale, encompass the full range of urban, suburban, and rural delivery routes, and offer similar non-delivery job opportunities, but differ in an important occupational hazard facing delivery workers -- weather. The survey questions will focus on working conditions, management practices, and worker attitudes and behaviors.

Laura Tach

Title: Trajectories of disconnection: Understanding the predictors, timing, and sequencing of men’s spells out of the labor force

Abstract: More men are absent from the labor force than in the past, particularly those with less education. Spells of disconnection from the labor force have both personal and societal consequences, and they contribute to widening economic inequality in the United States. In this paper, we build on existing research on men’s spells of labor force disconnection by taking a more nuanced, life course perspective to understand the sequencing and predictors of men’s work history patterns. Using monthly employment histories from the NLSY-1997 Cohort, which follows a nationally-representative sample of youth from 1980-1984 birth cohorts longitudinally through middle age, we find that 56% of male respondents experienced a spell of disconnection lasting at least 1 month between ages 25 and 37, but results from a sequence analysis of monthly employment histories reveal strong distinctions in the timing, duration, and pacing of their spells of disconnection. While some have only brief spells of being unemployed or out of the labor force, others are defined by continual churning in and out of employment, considerable spells out of the labor force, or repeated shifts between full and part time employment. Linking NLSY data to county-level characteristics, we find that the strength of local labor markets matters above and beyond men’s individual characteristics. Additionally, health characteristics of the county matter too: the drug mortality rate and being in a health provider shortage area are both associated with increased likelihood of labor force exits.  Finally, living in a nonmetro area predicts greater likelihood of labor force exit relative to men living in metro areas. The predictors of labor force exits are significantly stronger for men who experience more frequent or sustained disconnection compared to those who experience only infrequent and short spells of disconnection. These results suggest that understanding the history and dynamics of men’s disconnection spells could inform policy or programmatic efforts to boost men’s labor force participation. The results also point to the importance of modifiable features of local economies and communities that shape men’s labor force attachment above and beyond their own characteristics.