Widespread Labor Stickiness In The New England Offshore Fis

The argument that sticky labor and diverse labor adjustment processes are characteristic of the New England offshore fishing industry is documented with a case study of 2 large and economically diversified ports, Gloucester and New Bedford, which account for about 2/3 of the total New England fishing industry catch. Special features of the fisheries labor market arise largely from kinship-based instutitions that emerged in Gloucester in the 1950s and in New Bedford in the late 1960s. Although a capitalist system of employment exists in both ports, the kinship system has come to dominate. The market's special features are reinforced further by more traditional sources of labor immobility: fishermen's ties to their local communities, the fragile economic structure of the port economies, and the strong attachment of fishermen to their occupation. Fishermen in the kinship sector are more likely to be underemployed and remain in fishing than to be reemployed productively elsewhere.