Doctoral Dissertation Research: Labor-Market Formation in an Immigrant Community

9406596关于近几十年来世界各地经济活动所特有的戏剧性结构调整的劳森研究往往侧重于变化的经济层面或变化的经济活动对工人的社会影响。然而，对劳动力市场和劳动力内部社会过程之间的联系的关注相对较少。这篇博士论文研究项目将通过西雅图大都市区外饰服装业劳动力构成变化的案例研究来检验这些联系。这个行业一直是自1985年以来移居西雅图地区的近4万名亚洲移民中的许多人的主要就业场所。因此，现在外饰行业的大多数工人都是来自东南亚的女性。二手资料将被用来记录近几十年来该行业的转型，以便建立一个审议该行业当前结构的框架。第二阶段的研究将包括分析量化数据，包括美国人口普查的公共使用微数据样本(PLUMS)，以提供有关东南亚移民的家庭结构和劳动力参与的信息。还将与制衣业业主和管理人员以及来自越南和柬埔寨的制衣女工进行深入访谈，以从经济和社会的角度确定她们移民的情况和她们经历的特点。这项研究将以多种不同的方式为地理知识做出重要贡献。它将增加对劳动力市场在产业变革中的一般作用以及性别、种族和社会经济阶层的具体作用的基于经验的洞察是劳动力市场的转变。此外，该项目还将产生有关社会和经济进程相互作用方式的新知识。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

9406596 LAWSON Research on the dramatic restructuring that has characterized economic activities throughout the world in recent decades has tended to focus on either the economic dimensions of change or on the social implications of changing economic activities for workers. Relatively little attention has been given to the links between labor markets and social processes within the labor force, however. This doctoral dissertation research project will examine these links through a case study of the changing composition of labor in the outerware garment industry of the Seattle metropolitan area. This industry has been a primary place of employment for many of the nearly 40,000 Asian immigrants who have moved to the Seattle area since 1985. As a result, most workers in the outerware industry now are women from southeast Asia. Secondary sources will be used to document the transformation of the industry in recent decades in order to establish a framework for consideration of industry's current structure. A second phase of the research will include analysis of quantitative data, including the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) of the U.S. Census of Population, in order to provide information about the household structure and labor-force participation of southeast Asian immigrants. In-depth interviews also will be conducted with garment industry owners and managers and with female garment workers from Vietnam and Cambodia to determine the circumstances of their immigration and the character of their experiences from both economic and social perspectives. This research will make important contributions to geographic knowledge in a number of different ways. It will add to empirically based insights into the general role of labor markets in industrial change and to the specific roles of gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class is the transformation of labor markets. In addition, this project will generate new knowledge about the ways that social and economic processes interact. As a doctoral dissertation research improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.