Pathways Through Low-Wage Work

What are the pathways that mothers experience in the low-wage labor markets of Milwaukee? How do particular combinations of job characteristics — hours, wages, entries and exits — unfold over time in these women’s lives? Few researchers have attempted to uncover diversity in the pathways — also called longitudinal trajectories — of low-wage work, that is, the subgroups of the working poor who experience different combinations of wages, job length, and hours. Instead, most research has focused on particular job characteristics in isolation and at one point in time. And few studies have utilized both longitudinal survey and ethnographic data to examine how parents’