Characteristics and Well-Being of Adults with Nonstandard Work Arrangements

The researchers’ analysis focuses on adults who reported working for pay or being self-employed when participating in the December 2020 Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey (WBNS), a nationally representative survey of more than 7,500 adults ages 18 to 64. They estimate the share of these workers reporting nonstandard employment (i.e., contingent, alternative, or informal work arrangements) at any of their jobs and analyze how this share varies across demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. They then compare usual weekly hours worked, health insurance coverage, and families’ experiences of material hardship among adults in nonstandard and traditional employment arrangements.

The definition of nonstandard work arrangements for this brief draws on (1) classifications of contingent workers and alternative work arrangements used in the Current Population Survey Characteristics and Well Being of Adults with Nonstandard Work Contingent Worker Supplement (CWS), conducted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and US Census Bureau, and (2) participation in paid informal work activities used in the Survey of Household Economics and Decision Making (SHED), conducted by the Federal Reserve.

The WBNS builds on previous work using the CWS and SHED in several ways. First, the researchers bring together measures of contingent work, alternative work arrangements, and informal work activities to capture multiple types of nonstandard employment in a single survey. Second, they identify whether adults were engaged in nonstandard work at their primary job or other jobs. Finally, because the WBNS contains measures of economic well-being and hardship, they provide the first estimates of differences in material hardship between workers with nonstandard versus traditional employment arrangements to inform discussions of safety net and labor policies for different workers.

(This report is 15 pages long.)

The report stated the following findings:

• In December 2020, more than one in four employed nonelderly adults (25.9 percent) was engaged in nonstandard work, including nearly one in five (19.4 percent) who reported nonstandard work at their primary job. These rates are slightly lower than those in December 2019, when 29.0 percent of employed adults were engaged in nonstandard work, and 20.6 percent reported nonstandard work at their primary jobs.
• Among workers with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), nearly half (44.4 percent) reported nonstandard work arrangements in December 2020, and more than one in three (35.9 percent) reported nonstandard work at their primary job.
• Workers with nonstandard employment were more likely than traditional workers to report usually working fewer than 35 hours per week (31.3 percent versus 13.9 percent) and wanting to work more hours (26.7 percent versus 17.9 percent). They also were less likely to have health insurance coverage through an employer (55.4 percent versus 80.9 percent).
• Adults in nonstandard work arrangements experienced greater material hardship (including difficulties paying for housing, food, and medical care) across the income distribution. Even among workers with incomes at or above 400 percent of FPL, those who work in nonstandard jobs were more likely to experience material hardship than those in traditional work arrangements. And although rates of material hardship were high for all workers with incomes below 200 percent of FPL, those in nonstandard work arrangements were more likely to experience material hardship than traditional workers (58.4 percent versus 47.7 percent).

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2022
• Author(s): Karpman, M.; Loprest, P.; Hahn, H.
• Funding Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies