Contingent Work

Estimates as Evidence of a Problem

Estimates of the size and scope of the contingent workforce reflect a controversy over the definition of contingent employment. In 1995, the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting data on specific work arrangements, including expected duration of employment and related conditions of work such as earnings, benefits, and union membership. Data were collected several more times in alternating years. Yet analyses of the data have yielded widely divergent counts. Applying a series of narrow definitions, which excluded independent contractors and workers whose arrangements had lasted more than 1 year, researchers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics first estimated that contingent workers comprised 2.2 to 4.9 percent of the total workforce. Using the same data, however, another team of researchers applied a different definition—including most nonstandard work arrangements, regardless of duration—and determined, in contrast, that 29.4 percent of the workforce was in some way contingent.

The debate over numbers and definitions represents different views about the significance of contingent work and, in turn, whether these work arrangements are indeed a social problem. Analysts who apply a narrow definition—and imply little problem—suggest that nonstandard work arrangements provide expanded opportunities for certain segments of the workforce. They focus on workers' social characteristics and identify women, younger workers, and older workers near retirement as those most likely to choose contingent status. Analysts who equate contingent work with a broad range of nonstandard arrangements, in contrast, see evidence of worker subordination and limited opportunity. Comparing the characteristics of standard and nonstandard employment, they identify lower compensation, fewer employment benefits, and lower levels of union membership among contingent workers. Noting that these workers are disproportionately women and racial minorities, they further see contingent status as perpetuating economic inequality and social marginality.

Researchers concerned with inequities in employment, therefore, more often characterize nonstandard, contingent work as “substandard” and equate contingent status with a proliferation of poor-quality jobs. Many further relate contingent work to restructuring across industries, occupations, and sectors of the economy. With employment increasingly unstable and workers insecure, they note, more jobs are temporary—many mediated and controlled by staffing agencies—and a great many entail greater uncertainty, few formal rights, little legal protection, and greater individual responsibility for finding ongoing employment. With these concerns at the forefront, analysts and advocates who see contingent work as a social problem equate it broadly with a shifting of risk from employers to employees and from institutions to individuals. Workers assume greater risk, they argue, [Page 165]because the standard job, which once provided security for a large segment of the workforce, has become increasingly unstable or unavailable to more and more workers.

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