ABSTRACT
Neo-structuralist authors have developed a framework that has been used to offer an alternative treatment of underemployment to the ideas coming from the orthodoxy in microeconomics. However, one can extrapolate the ideas that neoclassical economists have advanced about other issues, such as wages and unemployment to reconstruct a possible neoclassical view of this problem. Glen G. Cain presents neoclassical economics as consisting of the marginal productivity theory of demand, and a supply theory that includes human capital theory and the theory of labor/leisure choices. The theory of demand is based on profit maximizing behavior of employers; the theory of supply is based on utility maximization of workers. Human capital characteristics are consistently correlated with labor force participation. Those having difficulty entering or remaining in the labor force include the very old and the very young, members of racial or ethnic minority groups that have experienced discrimination, women with traditional child care responsibilities, and those lacking education or job skills.
