Monograph No 7
Low Wage Jobs & Pathways to Better Outcomes
Sue Richardson (assisted by Lauren Miller-Lewis) This paper reviews the current state knowledge on the role played by low wage jobs in providing access to and progression in employment for low skill workers. In particular, it addresses a number of questions:
• the extent to which low pay jobs provide the first step on the ladder to reasonably paid and reasonably secure jobs for low skill workers;
• conversely, the extent to which low skill workers become stuck in low paid and insecure work;
• what are the characteristics of people who are employed in low wage jobs;
• which types of low paid jobs provide the best/worst chances of upward mobility;
• whether a low paid, insecure job is better than no job;
• whether low skill/low pay jobs can coexist with high skill/high pay jobs for similar work;
• the extent to which the costs of geographical mobility and broken employment histories inhibit wage mobility and why;
• whether the supply of low skilled/high skilled workers affects the demand for low skilled/high skilled workers;
• Whether different causes of low skill (low education, poor schooling or parenting, history on welfare, crime, drug dependence etc) affect future labour market outcomes.
Most attention has been paid to research based on the US, the UK and other parts of the English-speaking world. However, conclusions from the experience of continental Europe are also referred to, particularly because they differ in some respects from the Anglo experience.
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