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Abstract Social scientists have increasingly come to recognize the informal economy as a prominent and permanent structural feature of modern society. Rural sociologists have made a considerable contribution to this literature, demonstrating informal work to factor prominently in the livelihood strategies of rural Americans. Despite this scholarly attention significant gaps persist in our understanding of the informal economy. Drawing on data from a survey of family households in nonmetropolitan Pennsylvania, this paper examines the contours and correlates of informal work. The results make a strong case that participation in informal work is widespread and most often combined with formal work as a household livelihood strategy. While income is not found to be a significant correlate of informal work, it is found to influence the reasons cited for participation. Important correlates of informal work are identified and differences in the factors associated with informal work done to generate income (cash or in‐kind) versus savings are revealed.

Abstract Historically, rural racial and ethnic minorities have been among the most economically disadvantaged groups in the United States. Key to understanding economic deprivation is employment hardship, trends in which serve as a benchmark for progress toward racial and ethnic equality. We conceptualize employment hardship as underemployment, which goes beyond unemployment to include discouraged workers, involuntary part‐time workers, and the working poor. Analyzing data from the March Current Population Surveys of 1968 through 1998, we find that (1) there are large and persistent racial and ethnic inequalities in underemployment prevalence; (2) these disadvantages are explained only partially by other predictors of underemployment; (3) nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) minorities are more likely than either all metropolitan (metro) or central‐city minorities to be underemployed; (4) black‐white inequality has held steady overall, though it has declined markedly in nonmetro areas; and (5) Hispanic‐white inequality has increased; this trend, however, is restricted to metro areas, central cities in particular.

AbstractHigh underemployment has been a chronic structural feature of the rural United States for decades. In this paper, we assess whether and how inequalities in underemployment between metropolitan (metro) and nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas have changed over the course of the last five decades. Drawing on data from the March Current Population Survey from 1968 to 2017, we analyze inequality in the prevalence of underemployment between metro and nonmetro areas of the United States, paying special attention to differences between white, black, and Hispanic workers. Our results show that the underlying risk of underemployment has increased in both metro and nonmetro areas over the last 50 years. Nonmetro workers have consistently faced greater employment hardship compared to their metro counterparts, and these differences cannot be fully explained by differences in population characteristics. Nonmetro ethnoracial minorities have experienced particularly poor labor market outcomes. The disadvantage of ethnoracial minority status and rural residence is especially pronounced for nonmetro black workers, among whom underemployment has remained persistently high with only modest convergence with other workers. Hispanic workers also face an elevated risk of underemployment, but we observe a unique convergence between metro and nonmetro workers within this population.

We draw on in-depth interview data collected from participants in communities impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to explore how public and private sector decision makers express their understanding of the disaster recovery process. Two key themes emerged from our interviews and served as the central categories under which other issues were grouped: 1) disaster impacts; and 2) recovery activities. Disaster impacts included effects on community-level human capital, infrastructure, and the psychological/psychosocial toll wrought by the hurricanes. Community recovery activities in the wake of the storms included navigating financing/funding issues, employment growth, and more ambitious planning processes. A key finding from our analysis is the interconnectedness of the various themes discussed by participants. The implications of our findings are then discussed.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze data from the first-ever national-level study of informal work in the USA to test two prominent points of focus in the literature: how participation in informal work relates to social embeddedness and formal labor supply. This paper also provides a comparative test of the factors associated with exchange-based informal work (i.e. money/barter) vs self-provisioning activities.


Design/methodology/approach
The study draws on data from a national-level household telephone survey and uses descriptive statistics and logistic regression models.


Findings
The data show that participation in the informal economy is widespread in the USA. Consistent with theory, it is found that measures of social embeddedness and formal labor supply are much more salient for predicting participation in informal work for money/barter compared to self-provisioning.


Originality/value
Drawing on unique data from the first national-level household survey of informal work in the USA, this study provides generalizable support for the contention that the informal sector stands as a persistent structural feature in modern society. The results build on the wealth of information produced by qualitative case studies examining informal economic activity as well as a smaller number of regionally targeted surveys to provide important theoretical insights.

AbstractA key theoretical concept in the study of technological disasters is "recreancy," which refers to perception that institutional actors have failed to carry out their responsibilities in a manner that engenders societal trust. Using household survey data from the Community Oil Spill Survey (COSS) to assess recreancy in the context of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we analyze four waves of the COSS collected between 2010 and 2013 to explore respondents' perceptions of blame and distrust in relation to key institutional actors associated with the disaster, paying special attention to the influence of time and employment in natural resource occupations. We show that BP is clearly viewed as the principal responsible party at fault for the disaster and that the odds of blaming BP and the federal government have held relatively steady over time, while the odds of blaming state government increased over time. We find high levels of distrust of BP and the federal government, but show that odds of being distrustful of both institutional actors was significantly lower three years after the spill. Fishing households were significantly more likely to blame and be distrustful of institutional actors, a finding that is strongly consistent with theoretical expectations.