About 50 University of Michigan students and faculty members gathered inside the Ross School of Business Friday afternoon for a lecture on labor market inequality given by Nathan Wilmers, an associate professor of work and organization studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.
The event was hosted by the Interdisciplinary Committee on Organizational Studies and the U-M Sociology Department. Wilmers presented his research on national trends in labor market inequality — highlighting disparities in employment opportunities and wages between workers of different races, ethnicities, gender identities, education levels and other socioeconomic factors.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, ICOS Co-Director James Westphal said the ICOS lecture series focuses on bringing together the U-M community to hear from experts in different areas of organizational studies.
“(ICOS’) mission is basically to further (the University’s) place as the leader in organizational studies,” Westphal said. “This is designed to really bring together faculty and students from all over the University who have an interest in organizations. (We) also host a seminar that brings in leading scholars from around the world who do work in this area and hear about the latest theories and research and share ideas.”
Wilmers began his lecture by discussing changes in labor market inequality in the U.S. over time, noting a rise in inequality during the 1980s and another that coincided with the Great Recession in 2008.
Wilmers said he was surprised to see that levels of labor market inequality declining following decades of continuous increase.
“Based on … how linear rising inequality has been over the last few decades, I was really surprised to see a shift (towards decreasing levels of inequity) starting sometime between 2012 and 2015,” Wilmers said. “Inequality not only stops rising, but wage and earnings inequality, labor market inequality, actually starts falling pretty precipitously. … The most recent data we have suggests that inequality is not only no longer rising, it’s in fact falling pretty soundly.”
Though Wilmers emphasized the importance of understanding the causes of this decline in inequality, he explained that his research primarily focuses on whether or not the decline will continue, how employers will react to the change and how declining inequality affects low-wage workers.
Following a discussion on the rapid pay increases several blue-collar workers have experienced in the last decade, Wilmers explained that starting salaries have had to go up as blue-collar jobs involve more complex work.
“The big story here is that as complexity increases, there’s a big increase in workers’ prior pay,” Wilmers said. “It’s really selecting for workers who are paid more previously than when the job was less complex.”
However, Wilmers warned that increasing job complexity could be disadvantageous to job seekers with fewer academic qualifications, as employers might become more selective in the hiring process.
“Think (of) a retail job that used to be open to somebody without any higher education,” Wilmers said. “(If) you make it more complex and pay more, maybe you’re just going to select workers who have an associate’s degree, and those with only a high school education have fewer opportunities.”
Wilmers also said he has found that as task complexity and selective hiring increases, fewer women and minority applicants tend to be hired.
“We also see a decline in female representation (and in the) representation of Black and Latino workers … as task complexity increases,” Wilmers said. “From a perspective of sort of reducing inequality and concerns over exclusion, this is potentially a real issue.”
Nursing graduate student Rebecca Williams attended the lecture and told The Daily she found Wilmers’ lecture applicable to the nursing profession. She said she thinks nursing salaries do not always increase as specialization and task complexity does.
“Currently, at (the University), (nurses) are unionized and (there are) all different (types) of nurses,” Williams said. “There are nurses that are very highly specialized … Every nurse is important, but more specialized nurses get paid the same (despite) providing more complex services.”
In an interview with The Daily, Kilpatrick, the student who had introduced Wilmers at the start of the lecture, said he admired Wilmers for challenging business students and faculty to think about inequality in the workforce and how they can combat it.
“One thing that’s really nice to see about this is this is someone who works at a business school and obviously deeply cares about increasing profits for firms, but in terms of actually dealing with inequality between workers and communities,” Kilpatrick said. “It’s really awesome to see that there are researchers at business schools that care deeply about social issues and want to make them better.”
Daily Staff Reporter Eilene Koo can be reached at ekoo@umich.edu.