Research
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Using Qualitative Research to Understand the Economy: A Toolkit
The toolkit offers insights on using community-engaged qualitative research practices gleaned from the Federal Reserve’s Worker Voices Project and shows how others can use these methods in their own work. This toolkit is for researchers, policymakers, employers, and workforce organizations interested in partnering with the populations they serve and elevating community perspectives.
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Worker Voices Special Brief: Self-Employment, Dreams Versus Reality
Worker Voices participants described weighing the tradeoffs of self-employment from the independence it gave to its income generation potential. This research found that participants were pushed or pulled into self-employment for a variety of factors and their experiences did not align with their expectations of this work.
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Worker Voices Special Brief: Pursuing Advancement through Personal Investment
Worker Voices participants described their persistence in taking steps to improve their employment outcomes. They pursued skill-building opportunities and were more willing to leave lower-quality jobs, sometimes to pursue self-employment instead. However, their efforts were met with mixed results.
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Worker Voices Special Brief: Barriers to Employment
Worker Voices participants described the challenges facing individuals without a four-year degree as they navigated the job market during a global pandemic. Common barriers to work included an evolving labor market, individual attributes, work-family conflicts, and concerns regarding individual well-being.
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Worker Voices Special Brief: Perspectives on Job Quality
For Worker Voices participants, a quality job checks five boxes. Workers with a quality job are adequately compensated, treated well, secure in their position, given flexibility around hours and location, and engaged with the work.
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Worker Voices: Shifting Perspectives and Expectations on Employment
Worker Voices provides a unique view into how job seekers and workers in lower-wage roles navigated the labor market at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and through recovery—and how it changed what they expect from a job.
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Worker Voices: Shifting Perspectives and Expectations on Employment—Executive Summary
The Federal Reserve held focus groups with workers and job seekers with less than a bachelor’s degree, seeking to understand their perspectives and expectations on employment. Here’s what we heard.
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Worker Voices: Shifting Perspectives and Expectations on Employment [2023]
How did workers in lower-wage jobs experience employment during the pandemic? The Federal Reserve held focus groups with workers and job seekers aged 20–55 years with less than a bachelor’s degree to find out.
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Worker Voices: Shifting Perspectives and Expectations on Employment—Methodology
Have questions about Worker Voices? Get to know the methodology, coding approach, community-based participatory research principles employed, and limitations; statistics on participant demographics; and the facilitation guide questions used.
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Worker Voices: Shifting Perspectives and Expectations on Employment—Acknowledgments [2023]
We are grateful for everyone who contributed to Worker Voices. Thank you.