Government Mandates and Atypical Work: An Investigation of Right-to-Work States

Atypical work forms, such as agency temporary, consulting/contracting, and contract work, have been criticized as providing employers with a means to avoid government-mandated employment protections. In such cases, we would expect to see a lower prevalence of atypical work in right-to-work (RTW) states relative to non-RTW states. We test for this possibility using data from supplements to the 1995–2005 Current Population Surveys. Our empirical results provide a degree of support for this contention as we see significantly lower overall fractions of atypical work in RTW states than we do in agency- or union-shop states.