LOW-WAGES

LOW-WAGES and SEXISM

LOW-WAGES and SEXISM

Introduction

The role of low-wage work and low-wage workers in the U.S. economy is a topic that is currently not widely addressed in the MBA curriculum. Although coursework that looks at topics relevant to low-wage workers internationally (such as outsourcing, labour conditions, and base-of-the-pyramid strategies) is somewhat more common, few classes focus on those workers' American counterparts.

Nonetheless, low-wage workers—also known as the working poor—represent a significant portion of America's workforce. According to the results of a survey issued jointly in August, 2008 by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University, low-wage workers—defined as adults between the ages of 18 and 64, who work 30 or more hours a week, are not self-employed and earned no more than $27,000 in 2007—comprise approximately 22 percent of the U.S. adult population.

Low-wage workers perform functions that are essential to the larger economy: for example, they pick crops and check out groceries, allow for the presence of parents in the workplace by staffing day care centres, and keep the offices of Fortune 500 corporations clean. Still, many lack benefits like health insurance and sick leave that more highly-paid professionals often take for granted, and their job performance can be affected by life challenges—such as the threat of eviction, lack of access to adequate child care, and immigration concerns—that are quite different from those that professional workers typically face.

Many experts on the issues and strategies surrounding low-wage work and workers believe that business has an important role to play in helping to improve conditions for this sector of the workforce and those actions are ultimately beneficial to business itself. “As an organization that is committed to developing solutions that create real opportunity for low-wage workers, we at the Ford Foundation believe it's extremely important that business adopt strategies that both address their bottom line and, at the same time, help meet the needs of this large and growing sector of the workforce,” says Helen Neuborne, Director of the Ford Foundation's initiatives on securing equity for working families and next-generation workforce strategies.

The Bottom Line

¦ Low-wage workers make up 22% of the U.S. population, but their role in the economy and experience in the workplace is not widely addressed in the business curriculum.

¦ The topic of low-wage workers can raise questions in the business school classroom that are fundamental to a nuanced understanding of issues related to labour, demographics, diversity, and business's role in society—and so to business's long-term success.

Low-Wage Workers in the Classroom

Topics related to low-wage workers cut across a number of different industries and are relevant to a variety of disciplines. They can be taught in conjunction with concepts from the areas of business and society, innovation, human resource management, strategy, public policy, and operations. Below, the three faculties interviewed for this paper discuss the lenses through which they frame their teaching on low wage work and workers.

The Unequal Workforce

In the 1970s, women's participation in postsecondary education increased significantly. Women have been earning at least half of undergraduate degrees ...