CONCEPTUALIZING UNDEREMPLOYMENT AS A TYPE OF PRECARIOUS WORK: Identifying Career-Stage Antecedents of Underemployment in Order to Address It

This chapter aims to develop a deeper understanding of underemployment as a form of precarious work. We first review definitions, forms, and degrees of underemployment, including various antecedents of underemployment. We consider the ways in which underemployment can manifest at different career stages, as well as its antecedents and outcomes across these stages. We advance understanding of how different forms of underemployment may differentially manifest and impact specific societal groups (e.g., younger generations, older workers, and women), who have often experienced significant levels of precarious employment, underemployment, insecurity, and dislocation. These intersections require a nuanced approach to addressing underemployment, sensitive not only to the different types of underemployment but also to people at different career stages and as members of subgroups by sex and immigration status, employment sector, location, country, and community. We finish with a discussion of various interventions that target these factors which contribute to underemployment and conclude with recommendations for future research and policy formation.