Degree
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)
Major(s)
Accounting; Economics
Document Type
Immediate Open Access
Abstract
Mississippi is currently ranked second to last in labor force participation rate in the country. This is the latest damning statistic inhibiting the state from growing and becoming a more nationally recognized state with higher economic output. This thesis examines how Mississippi arrived at this bleak labor force participation rate and what is currently ongoing to alleviate it. It also examines some possible proposed solutions to accelerate those efforts. Through extensive research and numerous interviews with officials from public and private sector employees directly dealing with this predicament, this thesis has assembled a thorough and comprehensive picture of how the state reached this point, what is currently being done to fix it, and some initiatives to hasten improvement. Mississippi has long struggled with maintaining a healthy labor force ever since the inception of the state due to internal factors such as slow innovation and political tension and external factors such as the Civil War and multiple major natural disasters.
Currently Mississippi’s labor force participation rate is depressed by factors including education, healthcare, transportation, childcare, lack of applicable jobs, lack of major cities, and statewide culture. There are ongoing efforts to improve these factors through government funded public foundations like AccelerateMS and private foundations like EmpowerMS along with the normal efforts of the existing education and healthcare systems. This thesis proposes ten initiatives in addition to these efforts to improve the labor force participation rate. These initiatives directly address the main factors of the crisis and further unleash economic development in the state. The initiatives range from examining the balance of administrative salaries to teacher salaries in public education to starting an ad campaign to encourage workforce participation. While the labor force participation rate problems did not appear overnight due to the many intertwined dynamics and will not be fixed overnight, this thesis attempts to reach the heart of the issue and propose some possible steps to improve it.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.54718/QYZM3405
Date Defended
4-23-2025
Funding Source
None
Thesis Director
Dr. James Leggette
Second Committee Member
Dr. Brian Pugh
Third Committee Member
George Dunn
Recommended Citation
Fox, John Martin, "Almost Last Again? Mississippi's Labor Force Participation Rate: Causes and Solutions" (2025). Honors Theses. 171.
https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/honorstheses/171
Included in
Labor Economics Commons, Macroeconomics Commons, Political Economy Commons, Public Economics Commons
