IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/reorpe/v56y2024i2p185-213.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Rise of Guard Labor in the United States: Evidence from Local Labor Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Luke Petach
  • Anastasia Wilson

Abstract

We examine the rise of “Guard Labor†—defined as occupations devoted to labor extraction—at the commuting zone level in the United States. Between 1950 and 2017 the share of the labor force employed in guard labor increased from 19.5 percent to 29.4 percent. We explore the local labor market correlates of guard labor and validate several predictions of the labor discipline model, while extending the model to the context of contemporary racial capitalism. The share of the labor force employed in guard labor is positively correlated with the household income Gini coefficient, negatively correlated with the fraction of the labor force in a union, and positively correlated with contemporary measures of local racial animosity. Consistent with the labor discipline model, an increase in the share of the labor force employed in supervisory occupations has a significant negative effect on nonsupervisory wages. JEL Classification: O17, P16, Z13, B51, B52

Suggested Citation

  • Luke Petach & Anastasia Wilson, 2024. "The Rise of Guard Labor in the United States: Evidence from Local Labor Markets," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 56(2), pages 185-213, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:56:y:2024:i:2:p:185-213
    DOI: 10.1177/04866134231195390
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/04866134231195390
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/04866134231195390?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    guard labor; supervisory labor; incomplete contracts; inequality; local labor markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:56:y:2024:i:2:p:185-213. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.urpe.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.