Washington, 1995.
Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
For more information about this text and this American Memory collection, refer to accompanying matter.
Approximately
two-thirds of the life span of the average man is devoted to gainful employment. Of these years half of the waking hours are commonly spent in active work, if vacations, illness and involuntary idleness are left out of consideration. In any community the satisfaction of life are dependent upon the character of the occupations in which the people are engaged. Among the 40 percent of the population customarily employed for monetary gain and among th additional 20 percent who are housewives, the nature of the daily tasks is the leading determinant of the real meaning and quality of living. The quality of the job goes far to set the tone, pitch and tempo of leisure as well as of working hours. The requirements of accessible vocations and the relative attractiveness of different callings also exert a dominant influence over the content and direction of elementary and advanced education and vocational training. In an age of economic interdependence and specialized subdivision of labor the welfare of the community rests upon the maintenance of balance in the numbers in the different occupational groups.
Changing occupations present a panoramic view of long time social trends. They suggest also something of the human significance of the more recent changes of the past decade. As the years have gone by there has been a smaller and smaller proportion of the population engaged in agriculture and a greater and greater proportion living in urban districts. The shift to the cities has brought a profound change in the outlook on life. More women, especially more married women, are now working for pay outside of the home.
The new entrant in the world of gainful occupation of the 1930's confronts a range of opportunities for work which differs radically from that of two decades ago, or even from that which prevailed at the close of the World War. A remarkable expansion of the technical professions and a increasing demand for specialized training have been accompanied by a decline in the relative importance of the more arduous manual occupations as the proportion of the population engaged in white collar work has shot upward. The occupational shifts of the last decade exhibit the marked characteristics of a maturing industrial and commercial civilization in which freedom of employment opportunity is more limited than in the days of vast unclaimed resources and a beckoning frontier. There is reason for increasing concern with the revamping of traditional educational and training patterns as a means of enhancing the human values of modern life. With the twentieth century has come the beginning of a new quest for stability and security in life in contrast to the easy reliance upon indefinite expansion characteristic of a country in its youth.
Despite the early expansion of population and enterprise in the United States, the tools and techniques of production and the general character of gainful employment were not subject to violent or sweeping change prior to the 1870's. The quality of the daily rounds of toil in fields, marts and workshops at the time of the Civil War was in general quite comparable with the prevalent occupations of the people of the two or three preceding generations. During the 1870's and 1880's a tremendous acceleration in the rate of economic and industrial development introduced a new element of continual change in the nature of the work performed and in the distribution of the working population among expanding industries and shifting occupation. During the last three decades of the nineteenth century revolutionary changes in technology and the release of the teeming resources of a new continent made it possible to conduct industrial enterprise on an increasingly large scale. The urgent labor requirements of industry have drawn into the factories and workshops veritable hordes of native Americans as well as a vast stream of immigrant workers.
It is inevitable that profound changes have occured in the life and labor of a people whose physical production has increased twenty-five or thirty fold during six decades. The sheer physical expansion of activity has far outstripped the growth of population.
In the following pages the tendencies of recent years will be examined against the long background of occupational shifts during the great expansion period since the Civil War. The discussion rests upon an analysis of the statistics of
occupations,
of
employment,
and of
unemployment.
The data of
occupations
pertain to the numbers customarily at work or dependent upon employment in various lines of endeavor without reference to the actual availability of work in these lines. Statistics of
employment,
on the other hand, show the numbers of workers carried on active payrolls. The statistics of
unemployment,
less extensive and more difficult to interpret than the statistics of occupations and employment, will be discussed in later pages.
What proportion of the people actually engage in producing and distributing the nation’ good and service? How numerous are the dependents who do not pay their own? Has the proportion of the population which carries the load of physical production been increasing or decreasing? It might be reasonable to suppose that with the coming of the machine a smaller proportion of the population should be required to work, especially in view of the increases in aggregate and per capita wealth in recent decades. Our estimates show, however, that a larger percentage of the population has been at work since 1910 than in 1870 or in the intervening decades.
Major Division of the Population.
—How the proportion of the total population gainfully occupied has increased during the past seventy years is shown by the data of Table 1 and in Figure 1. While the population increased over 200 percent, from forty millions in 1870 to one hundred and twenty-five millions in 1930, the number of person gainfully occupied grew still more rapidly from a little over twelve millions in 1870 to a total of more than-eight millions in 1930, an increase of approximately 300 percent. From Figure 1 it will be seen that the gainfully occupied were increasing more rapidly than the total population during the first four decades of the period under consideration.
The proportion of the population engaged in gainful pursuits increased from 32 percent in 1870 to nearly 40 percent in the decades since 1910. This means that a growing fraction of the population has produced the good and service consumed. A more illuminating picture
Fig. 1.—Growth of total population and of population gainfully occupied, 1870-1930.
proportion gainfully occupied among the population ten year of age and over increased from 44 percent in 1870 to nearly 50 percent in 1930.
Fig. 2.—Primary activity distribution of the total population, 1870-1930.
Fig. 3.—Percent of male and of female population gainfully occupied in 1930, by age.
Of the population 16 years of age and over, 57 percent are now customarily employed as compared with
52
percent in 1870. Thus a distinctly
larger proportion even of the population which has reached working age has shouldered the load of the nation's gainful work. Apparently, however, during the past two decades the proportion has not increased but instead has declined slightly.
Comparison with Great Britain.
—To lend perspective to the American situation a comparison of these trends with similar figures for Great Britain is shown in Table 3. Detailed comparison of these figures should be made cautiously in view of probable differences in the census methods used in the two countries. However, it is clear that the ratio of gainfully occupied to the total population of Great Britain has declined since the 1890's, while in America the trend has been toward a higher ratio of the working population to the total. In 1920, however, a larger fraction of the total population was engaged in gainful pursuits in Britain than in America. Especially marked in the divergence in the relative proportion of women employed in the two countries. In 1911 one-third of British women were recorded as gainfully occupied as compared with less than one-forth of America women in 1910.
The relative number of British women gainfully employed had declined slightly by 1921 but it still exceeded the proportion of American women in this category by approximately 10 percent. This comparison is affected by the greater degree of urbanization and the relative unimportance of agriculture in Great Britain. It is also affected by the persisting influence of the employment habits of an earlier generation in England when large numbers of women were employed in the English factories and workshops of the early industrial revolution.
Productive Capacity of the Population
—The growing proportion of the total population engaged in gainful work over the past six decades in the United States is partially explained by the increased employment of women outside the home. An additional explanation is found in the increasing proportion of available labor power in the total population
In actual numbers children have always comprised a very large percentage of the population, but with the fall in birth rate and the consequent reduction in the rate of population growth the number of dependents supported by the working population has been reduced.
We have seen that the gainfully employed were 40 percent of the population in 1930 as compared with 32 percent in 1870. Among these the large proportion of women engaged in the care of their own homes is not included, though they are class contributing in an important way to the total of goods and services. By including housewives with the gainfully employed the percentage of the population at work mounts to more than 60 percent during recent decades.
In determining the number of persons actually carrying the burdens of society we must make allowance for the sick and the unemployed among those ordinarily at work. If thos too sick to work and the normally unemployed are considered, the number of actively employed workers is reduced to not more than 54 or 55 percent of the total population. At the present time, in other words, a little more than half of the population carry on the current work of society and somewhat less than half are dependents.
Gainful Workers According to Age.
—The structure of the working population has been affected by forces from without as well as from within. During the eighties and nineties industry and trade attracted large
On the other hand older workers are tenaciously clinging to employment. Contrary to popular supposition, the occupation statistics indicate that a greater proportion of persons between the ages of 45 and 65 is now customarily employed than during the nineties. This is explained largely by the increase in the employment of women. Of men, the proportion at work between these ages has remained relatively constant. Among men of 65 and over there is distinctly less employment today than formerly, as is shown by the decline of gainfully occupied in this group from 74 percent in 1890 to 58 percent in 1930. Among women past 65 the extent of
gainful employment is small and the proportion at gainful work has not changed significantly. These changes are summarized in Table 5.
Figure 3 reveals the present concentration of employment among men in the age groups between the mid-twenties and the fifties, and the steady scaling off in the proportion gainfully occupied during the later years of life. The peak of female employment naturally appears during the late
Fig.
4.—Proportion of older men occupied and unoccupied, 1890-1930.
'teen and the early twenties, the pre-marriage age for the majority of women. There is a sharp reduction in the number of women gainfully employed during the late twenties and again during the early thirties as an increasing proportion of the female population abandons the labor market for the profession of home making. Between the late thirties and the early fifties the proportion of women gainfully occupied declines
For men, the changes since 1890 in the ages at which they leave gainful work is shown in Figure 4, together with the proportions found in agriculture and in manufacturing. Men of 45 to 54 years of age had the same percentage in gainful work in 1890 as now, but the proportion in agriculture has greatly decreased, while those in manufacture and other pursuits have increased. For the ages 55 to 64, there has been come drop in the proportion of gainful workers since 1890, with a change in industrial distribution similar to the change in the next younger group. The oldest group, males 65 and over, is seen to have had a large increase in its proportion without gainful occupation, which is balanced by a decrease in agriculture. This change, however, is not a new phenomenon, but has come about by very gradual development.
Gainful Workers in Relation to Dependents.
—A factor in the reduction of the number of dependents receiving direct family support is the relative increase of the number of adults in custodial institution. Although the absolute number of persons thus cared for is not impressive, these changes give evidence of the community's growing sense of responsibility for the aged, the unemployable and the indigent who cannot be adequately cared for in their own homes.
As has been shown in Table 1 above, the estimated proportion of housewives not otherwise occupied shows a surprising stability in relation to the total population, varying only a fraction of one percent during the entire sixty years under review.
Although the earning population today supports fewer dependents than heretofore there are more breadwinners per family to share in that support.
More significant than the changes in the absolute or relative numbers of the total population are the shifts which have taken place in the structure and functions of that population and in the nature of the
Fig
. 5.—Trend of major occupational groups, 1870-1930 (gainful workers 16 years of age and over).
The Shift from Agriculture to the City.
—The most dramatic single movement is the great migration from the farm to the city and the relative decline in the number of agricultural workers. The increased efficiency of farming,
Fig.
6.—Percentage distribution of gainfully occupied persons 16 years of age and over among major occupational groups, 187-1930.
operators on the farm. Artificial tractive power, gas engines, electricity and improved implements, which render agricultural work less burdensome but more productive, have becomes almost essential for successful commercial farming. During the depression of 1930-1932 the return to the farm of many persons seeking low cost housing and subsistence has at least temporarily stemmed the tide of decline in rural population. A minor gain of 648,000 in farm population for 1932 as compared to 1931 is shown by recent reports from the United States Department of Agriculture.
Trends in Basic Industries.
—The three major producing groups of agriculture, mining and manufacturing (including construction) comprise
Before considering these groups, let us examine more carefully the trends in the major producing groups themselves.
It will be seen from Table 7 that dependent upon employment in manufacture and construction have increased in number from 22 per-cent of the total gainfully occupied in 1870 to a peak of 30 percent in 1920.
this relatively small increase in factory employment to support the burden of mounting industrial production. The spurt in output per worker between 1920 and 1930 was not accompanied, however, by an equally rapid increase in the actual production and consumption of goods.
In 1870 the extractive industries required one and one-half percent of the total working population. Since that time the use of minerals has become more and more indispensable and thee technical progress of these industries has kept pace with their importance. In 1920 the percentage of gainfully employed in mines and quarries had increased to almost 3 per-cent of the working population, while the absolute numbers employed had increased six fold, a change which reflects especially the steady growth in the production and consumption of coal and iron. As in manufacturing, recent technical improvements have led to a reduction in labor requirements in mines and quarries so that fewer persons were attached to these employments in 1930 than in 1920.
In 1870 about 75 percent of the gainfully employed were engaged in the production of physical goods, in agriculture, mining, manufacturing and construction. In 1930 only about 50 percent of the labor supply was so required. This reduction has been accomplished by the more effective application of science and technology in production. Man has learned to exploit his knowledge of chemistry and physics and he relies on the machine and the use of steam and electric power to aid in the conversion of nature's wealth into consumption goods.
The Growth of Transportation, Trade and Clerical Work.
—Numerically the most important major occupational group outside the basic
The clerical and selling occupations have expanded rapidly with the refinement and elaboration of the processes of commerce and trade. We have seen that between 1870 and 1920 those at work in agriculture fell in relative numbers from over half to a little more than 25 percent of the total working population and those in manufacturing and mechanical occupations increased from 22 to 30 percent, a combined net decline. In 1870 a scant 10 percent of the working population was sufficient for the distribution of the combined product of the one and one-half percent who were engaged in mining, the 22 percent in manufactures and the 52 percent in agriculture, but in 1930 the diversity of industrial production and the area of markets were so vastly extended that more than one-fifth of the nation's workers sought aa livelihood in transportation and distribution of the nation's output. Thus those engaged in trade, transportation and communication have more than doubled in their relative numbers in the occupied population from 1870 to 1930.
The expansion of the clerical group, which is scattered widely among the fields of finance, industry and trade, has taken place in spite of the rapid introduction of labor saving office machinery. If the clerical occupations were subdivided according to industrial classifications it would doubtless be discovered that the number of white collar employees of financial houses has mounted fully as rapidly as the number of sales clerks in wholesale and retail trades. The importance of women in clerical occupations is emphasized by the enormous growth in the number of female stenographers from a negligible number in the seventies to a total rapidly approaching eight hundred thousand in 1930 and in the number
Fig.
7.—Growth of selected occupations, 1870-1930—trade (gainful workers 16 years of age and over).
prominently in the growing employment in telephone and telegraph services and in the ranks of bookkeepers and accountants, insurance and real estate agents. Included in the clerical group are many persons employed
Fig.
8.—Growth of selected occupations, 1870-1930—clerical service (gainful workers 16 years of age and over).
in the public service, the character of whose occupations distinguishable from those in other groups only because they are explicitly dependent upon the public payroll. The clerical or white collar employees are quite as dependent upon modest earnings as industrial wage earners,
The growing number of the occupations in finance, trade and clerical services reflects the great elaboration of the processes of financing and distribution which has accompanied the specialization of industry, the minute subdivision of labor and the rise of the techniques of automatic production. The machine revolution has completely released about 25 percent of the working population from arduous manual toil while labor saving machinery has simultaneously lightened the physical burdens of the wage earners remaining on farms and in the mines and factories. For every four workers apparently displaced by increasing industrial productivity since 1870 from two to three workers more than were then required now find employment in the marts of trade, on the routes of the commercial traveler, in the warehouses, shops, offices, counting houses and miscellaneous establishments of modern business devoted to the processes of distribution and the arts of financing and selling. Thus every increase in physical output per man has been accompanied by further employment in distributive pursuits and also in those occupations where men and women spend their working hours in administration, in planning and in the routine essential for the conduct of affairs. This complex business superstructure rests upon a technological base of smooth working physical plant and human skill which turns out the material goods required; conversely the very existence and continuity of the manual worker's job is dependent in a real and vital sense upon the efficient functioning of the overhead administrative and distributive organization which must arrange for the disposition of the industrial output if the wheels of industry are to continue in operation. The acceleration in the recent relative gains of the commercial employments is further evidence of “industry's coming of age” in America, to which attention has already been directed.
The Public Service.
—The twentieth century has seen a great multiplication of the functions of government. The activities of the public service have been extended until they touch the life of the individual and the community at innumerable points, and the number of persons required to carry on these manifold activities has been correspondingly increased. A major item in the cost of government is that of wages and salaries,
An independent estimate of the growth of the public service occupations from 1910 to 1930 has been made in connection with this study.
National Municipal Review,
January, 1932, vol. XXI, p. 71), and a little lower than King's estimate of 2,819,000 for 1927 (see W.I. King,
The National Income and Its Purchasing Power,
National Bureau of Economic Research, New York, 1930, p. 50). Our estimate for 1920 may be somewhat too small, since the basis for estimating the number of governmental clerical workers in this year is not good.
Fig.
9.—Growth of public service occupations, 1910-1930.
group action among them directly confronts the power and sovereignty of the state.
In 1910 the construction and maintenance of roads, streets and sewers required between 200,000 and 300,000 persons. In the post-war year of 1920 this employment shrank in importance only to rise again to an
Domestic and Personal Service.
—Although domestic and personal service has shown a smaller degree of relative change than any other major category over the entire seventy year period
Fig.
10.—Growth of selected occupations, 1870-1930—domestic and personal service, (gainful workers 16 years of age and over).
service has brought the elimination of much of the “twenty-four hour employment” so frequently characteristic of domestic work, while the institutionalization of personal service has given the worker greater freedom and contact with his fellows.
Professional Service.
—The heterogenous professional employments have undergone a pronounced expansion which repays careful study.
In the preceding section the major shifts in occupations have been sketched in broad outline. Attention will now be given to the changes in the nature of the work within several of the major groups.
Character of Occupations and Basic Industries.
—We have pointed out that the mechanization of agriculture has lessened the rigors of farming where it has been mechanized. The work of the agriculturalist can now be done on a large scale with the aid of highly developed machinery and artificial power. Among the effects of the modernization of farming is the decrease in the number of farm laborers per farmer. The census figures for recent decades indicate that there has also been a rapid diminution of the unpaid family labor which has traditionally constituted so large a part of the farm labor supply. With new methods of farming and new social standards the farmer's wife now does rather less of the work than formerly and fewer of the sons and daughters remain at home to share responsibility for farm work.
Attention has been called to the growth of employment in the extraction of minerals up to 1920 and to the decline in the subsequent decade. Although the mechanization of coal mines has lagged behind that of the iron and non-ferrous metal mines, the recent extension of mechanical methods in underground operations and more effective economies in the industrial use of fuels have led to an absolute decline of more than one hundred thousand in the number of workers dependent upon the mining industries, and a relative decline of 0.7 percent in extractive employments as a whole during the decade of the 1920's. Coupled with the economic sickness of the coal industry the decline in the unit labor requirements in mining means hardship in hundreds of coal miners’ villages. The recent growth of the oil and gas industries has introduced new unskilled and semi-skilled employments which are light and not particularly disagreeable in
Fig.
11.—Growth of agricultural, lumbering and fishing occupations, 1870-1930 (gainful workers 16 years of age and over).
Still more pervasive are the qualitative changes in the manufacturing and mechanical occupations which have been brought about by technological advance. The great expansion in manufacturing took place between
Fig.
12.—Growth of mining occupations, 1870-1930 (gainful workers 16 years of age and over).
that the most far reaching changes have taken place in the nature of the work performed. In the shops and factories old jobs have continually become obsolete and new ones have appeared; old tools and methods have become inadequate and thousands of former handicrafts have been first converted into tasks auxiliary to machine operation in semi-automatic production, and then into machine operations.
Fig.
13.—Growth of selected occupations, 1870-1930—transportation (gainful workers 16 years of age and over).
There has been great expansion in the number of persons attached to the public utility industries between 1910 and 1930. These are the workers responsible for a continuous supply of gas, electric light and power for streets, homes, workshops and factories. Employees of the railroads, telephone and telegraph companies also belong in this category. A common characteristic of this group is that the continuous maintenance of service is incumbent upon these enterprises.
The occupational trends in transportation and communication are portrayed in Figure 13. Steam railroad employment rose unchecked until 1910, when a relative decline set in, followed by an absolute decline during the decade of the 1920's. Although operating and maintenance crews must be kept intact for the maintenance of service in the face of declining freight and passenger traffic, the number of persons employed in that industry declined 12 percent between 1920 and 1930.
Racial Shifts in Industries.
—Meanwhile the racial composition of the industrial labor supply has changed significantly. Immigration which had declined during the Civil War increased during the early 1870's and dropped again at the close of the decade. A sharp rise in the early 1880's was followed by a slump, which was accentuated during the lean years of the 1890's. This was followed by an unprecedented influx largely from southeastern Europe, mounting steadily from 1900 to 1907. From 1907 to 1914 there was only one year in which the volume of immigration sank below the high peak of 1882. In their native countries the great majority of the later immigrants had been engaged in relatively unskilled occupations, as common laborers or as agricultural workers. In their new environment most of them entered the ranks of unskilled labor, few finding employment in their accustomed occupation. The
In 1910 Negroes accounted for less than one in every ten of all employable males over 10 years of age, while approximately two in ten were foreign born whites. During the next decade the Negroes decreased in relative importance in the population, and there was a drop in the proportion of Negro males gainfully employed. However, there was a striking increase in the number of Negroes in the northern industrial areas, especially in the iron and steel industry, in the petroleum refineries, in the foundries industry, in the metal trades and in the food industries. These changes reflect a large scale displacement of foreign born whites by colored labor. The Negro has not advanced readily into the semiskilled and skilled pursuits.
Management and the Entrepreneur.
—The number of proprietors and officials in various branches of enterprise has expanded with the growth of industry and trade. The growth in their numbers in the manufacturing industry in recent years reflects the recent refinement and multiplication of the functions of management. During the boom period following the war there was a marked expansion of “general staff” in many large scale manufacturing corporation, including a growth in the number of personnel workers, industrial statisticians, management and marketing experts and specialists of various kinds attached to individual concerns.
It is difficult to separate the “self-employed,” in technical language the entrepreneur, from those working for wage and salaries. Gainful workers of this class differ from others in that they assume directly the risks of their own employment instead of receiving a fixed rate of compensation from an employer. According to a recent estimate, entrepreneurs comprise roughly 10 percent of the total gainfully occupied population. The proportion of this group to the total working population has declined slightly during the past twenty years.
op. cit.,
pp. 48-52; pp. 62-64.
Fig.
14.—Growth of selected occupations, 1870-1930—professional service (gainful workers 16 years of age and over).
are independent workers without hired help. Next in numerical importance are the merchants, including a vast number of small shopkeepers. The growth in this group is reflected in the figures for wholesale and retail dealers as given above in Table 6 and Figure 7. With the growth of corporate enterprise the individual entrepreneur outside of agriculture appears to be declining in importance. This means that the risk bearing of the typical modern enterprise is broken up among groups of stockholders, frequently numbering thousands of security owners. Ownership which is thus divorced from active control represents to the average person a channel for the investment of savings, while the earnings of those formerly self-employed are derived to an increasing extent from salaries or wages.
The Professions.
—Internal changes in the professional group have a special significance. This group as a whole is now almost ten times as large as in 1870. Changes in individual professions are shown in Figure 14 which portrays the steady growth of some of the older professions and the rapid expansion of some of the newer ones. In a special sense the machine age is the creation of the technical engineers, whose numbers, (excluding electricians) have increased from 7,000 in 1870 to a total of more than 226,000 in 1930. Designers, draftsmen and investors have increased in number still more rapidly than the engineers. The 2,000 architects engaged in the professional designing of the American buildings of 1870 were probably more adequate in number for their task than the 22,000 confronted by the vast scale and diversity of modern construction in 1930. That the scientific age of metals was still in its infancy at the end of the Civil War is attested by increase of chemists and metallurgists from a negligible 772 in 1870 to almost 50,000 in 1930. The number of physicians and surgeons has grown from 62,000 in 1870 to 160,000 in 1930. Since 1910 the growth of the medical profession has failed to keep pace with that of the population. The relative decline in the number of physicians has been partially offset by the remarkable recent growth of hospital facilities and personnel. The serious aspect of this lag lies, however, in the inadequate geographic distribution of physicians. Meanwhile the number of dentists has been multiplied nine fold.
Fig.
15.—Percentage distribution of gainfully occupied children, by major occupational groups, 1870-1930.
the census figures do not furnish convincing proof that the artistic interests of the people have kept pace with the concentration of urban population during the seventy year period, they do give evidence of substantial recent gains which hold promise for the future.
now engaged in teaching perhaps 90 percent are dependent upon employment in the public schools. In 1870 the census of occupations found 84,000 women in the teaching profession; in 1930 here were over 880,000 women listed a teachers and professors including an absolute increase of 230,000 since 1920.
Child Labor.
—the decline of children's work since the turn of the century has been briefly noted above. The census figures indicate that of boys between the ages of 10 and 15,26 percent were customarily employed in 1890 and 1900 and only 6 percent in 1930. Gainful occupation among females of the same ages dropped from 10 to 3 percent during the same years. This is an aggregate decline of the employment of children between these ages from 18 percent in 1800 to 5 percent in 1930. The internal changes in the distribution of juvenile labor shown in Figure 15. Between 1870 and 1920 an increasing proportion of children at work outside of agriculture has been employed in the manufacturing industries, but this percentage has markedly diminished between 1920 and 1930 as a result of the greater prevalence and more rigid enforcement of child labor legislation. The relative increase of child labor in trade, transportation and clerical service is partly explained by the growing number of delivery boys, messenger boys and office boys, many of whom are in school during part of the year. Employment of children in domestic and personal service has steadily diminished. Throughout the period between 60 and 70 percent of the employment of minors has been on the farm where boys at an early age “hire out” or take the place of hired labor on the home farm. The relative increase in juvenile employment in agriculture since 1920 is explained by the more rapid shrinkage in the number of child workers in other employments. Figure 16 shows by major occupations the growth of juvenile employment up to 1900. In the next decade a decided decline appeared in every category except
trade and transportation and clerical service, both of which declined after 1920.
Fig.
16.—Children in major occupational groups, 1870-1930 (relative growth curves
personal service in 1870 were under and age of sixteen. As shows in Table 8, since 1920 there has been a marked decline in the employment of younger workers both below and above the age of sixteen.
We have seen that only a little over 60 percent of the population share in the nation's work, in gainful employment or as housewives. What do the people do who are not at work? We know of course that some are chronically ill or otherwise physically incapacitated, that many are children too young to work and that others are too old; some
The School Population.
—Of greatest consequence is the increase in the school population of the United States which is revealed in Table 1.
According to the census enumerations the ratio of all persons attending school to the total population of ages 5 to 20 has increased from 45 to 78 percent from 1870 to 1980, as shown in Table 9. For the white population this ratio increased from 51 percent in 1870 to 74 percent in 1930. Five years after the close of the Civil War only 10 percent of the Negro population between the ages of 5 and 20 were attending school, according to the census. By 1880, during the reconstruction period, this percentage had leaped to 33 percent and thereafter it remained substantially unchanged until 1910 when 45 percent of the colored population in this age group were recorded among the school population, the same proportion as that for both white and colored in 1870. Recent progress in eliminating illiteracy among the colore people is shown by the continued
Institutional Population.
—The upward trend in the proportion of the adult population in institutions has already been noted. The details of the growing number of these dependents in institutions are shown in Table 10 and Figure 17.
Of those not in gainful pursuits, a good many are cared for by society in institutions such as homes for the aged, county poorhouses, insane asylums, institutions for the feeble minded, reformatories for children, hospitals for the sick, and the like. These are the persons most commonly
Fig.
17.—Estimated growth of institutional population, 16 years of age and over, 1890-1920.
thought of as dependents.
Our estimates of institutional population should be interpreted with caution. They do not represent the total number of dependents in society, for many are still cared for their families; nor do they indicate the growth of feeblemindedness, insanity and other defects in the population. Not all the insane are in mental hospitals, while pensions for the aged are maintaining an increasing number of dependent old people outside of institutions. The increase of institutional populations is the result of many factors including growth in the absolute number of dependents, increase in the collective responsibility of society and possibly the breakdown of the family as a protective institution.
The Housewife.
—It is an anomaly that the housewife as distinguished from the paid housekeeper is regarded in all census tabulations ad “not gainfully occupied.” Only housewives who report some occupation other than unpaid domestic work are included by the census among the productive workers. In 1920 the Census Bureau estimated that 22,500,000 women, who constituted 66 percent of the female population 16 years of age and over, were “home housekeepers not gainfully occupied.” This left 24 percent of the female population in gainful pursuits and 4 percent in school or college, with the remainder unaccounted for.
Women in Gainful Occupations, 1870 to 1920,
Census Monograph IX, 1929, p. 6.
The major changes in the distribution of occupations and in the nature of work during six decades have been sketched rapidly in the preceding pages. We have pointed that the satisfactions of the worker's life are intimately dependent upon the nature of his employment. One of the most important aspects of any trade or calling is the degree of security which it affords. Regularity of employment, continuity of earning power and security of retirement are at least as important to the worker as the nature of the tasks which he performs. Thus far this chapter has considered the data of
occupations,
rather than of
employment;
that is, it has dealt with the size and character of the whole of labor groups irrespective of the degree to which these groups have had work or lacked it. In what follows we shall attempt to uncover any trends that may exist in the security of occupations and of employment.
Interdependence a Factor of Insecurity.
—A survey of the census figures has revealed that a constantly increasing number of highly differentiated occupations is a leading feature of the shifting work pattern of the population. These changes bring a continual increase in the interdependence of tasks and in turn the security of occupations is affected by the case with which the economic machine can be put out of gear. Just as an intricate mechanical contrivances stops working when any important single part ceases to perform its tasks, so in the modern economic system a delicate working balance between the interdependence parts is necessary if continuity of employment and relative security for the worker are to be maintained.
In earlier days an abundance of free land offered opportunity to anyone who might wish to cast his lot with the pioneer. This alternative for the insecure and dissatisfied has now been removed. Today few
The tradesman and the clerk of today are dependent upon the flow of physical goods from shops and factories and therefore upon the maintenance of the purchasing power in the community. In turn, the industrial worker is dependent upon the well being his fellows and of others in the population who must buy the product of his industry if he is to remain employed. Each group among the gainfully occupied is dependent physically and financially upon the work of others, upon the maintenance of their buying capacity and the proper occupational distribution of the working population. Productive industry cannot distribute or consume its own product and the commercially occupied population cannot directly satisfy its own physical needs. this interdependence is the basis of the major unemployment problem of today.
Unemployment.
—It is not the task of this chapter to analyze the causes of unemployment. Suffice it to say that alternating shrinkage and expansion of employment opportunity is a characteristic feature of modern industry. Seasonal unemployment is familiar enough in many trades and in all large communities. In building and in other lines large numbers of workers find it necessary to accumulate their own reserves against the recurring hazards of irregularity. The succession of the changing seasons is of course predictable and their impact on unemployment can be foreseen to a great extent. Although many techniques have been advanced for combating seasonal unemployment,
Reducing Seasonal Unemployment
, New York, 1931.
Seasonal Variations in Industry and Trade
, National Bureau of Economic Research, New York, 1932.
Quite different from the seasonal and cyclical causes of unemployment are the long time changes in the structure of industry and the permanent shifts in the opportunities for employment which have been discussed at some length. In recognition of the direct displacement of labor which may follow in the wake of new machines and greater productivity there has been much talk in recent years of the growing seriousness of
technological unemployment
. But the competition between machines and labor is not new. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the literature is replete with discussion of the loss of employment because of the machine. Except as a name for immediate, local and frequently temporary labor displacement the term technological unemployment is probably a misnomer. Technology is only one cause of reduction in the amount of labor time required for each unit of production. Among other causes are improvements in the efficiency of management, greater skill or greater effort on the part of workers, greater regularity in the flow of work, regularization of markets and a host of other factors which may contribute to the increased efficiency of organization and operation. Technological improvements frequently open up new opportunity for enlarged employment by reducing unit costs so that the market for the product can be expanded. Changes in consumption habits and shifts in market demand, in turn may have a dislocative effect on employment similar to that of increased productivity. The impact of technical changes upon employment may be felt in either one or both of two ways—(1) in a shift in the type of worker required in a given industry, or (2) in a temporary or permanent reduction in the number of workers required. By causing shifts in necessary tasks the introduction of new techniques may affect the identity of the unemployed without affecting their numbers.
The operation of these factors is illustrated by the history of employment and technological changes in the heavy iron and steel industry. If the 1929 tonnage of iron and steel could have been manufactured with the techniques and equipment of 1890, approximately a million and a quarter men would have been required in blast, furnace, steel works and rolling mills instead of actual employment of four hundred thousand. At the efficiency level of 1900 eight hundred thousand men would have been needed for the 1929 production. It would be absurd to say that
Fig.
18.—Tread of factory employment and of steam railroad employment, 1919-1931, compared with population growth.
Factory employment: Federal Reserve Board index adjusted to biennial census of manufactures; base, 1923 to 1925 - 100.
Steam railroad employment: Actual employment as reported by United States Interstate Commerce Commission for Class I railroads.
have advanced eight-fold during this period. However, it is doubtful whether such expansion of production and markets can continue indefinitely in the basic industries or in manufacturing industry as a whole. If not, the further advances of productivity may be accompanied by an aggregate displacement of labor instead of the mere reduction in unit labor requirements which in the past has usually been followed by an absolute expansion of employment. But our ignorance of the rate of absorption in the expanding or new industries is such that quantitative prediction cannot be made.
The Recent Trends in Industrial Employment.
—It has been shown above that the number of persons in manufacturing and mechanical occupations has declined relative to the total gainfully occupied population
these years. It appears probable that a smaller average employment in manufacturing industries was supported by a larger labor reserve in 1930 than in 1920. Many persons still regard themselves as part of these industries long after re-employment in old occupations has become unlikely. Instances are known in which the former workers in an abandoned manufacturing town refuse to seek employment elsewhere, unable or unwilling to believe that factory doors will not reopen.
Year
Percenpage above and below average
1897
+77
1898
+66
1899
+3
1900
-2
1901
-26
1902
-23
1903
-31
1904
-1
1905
-84
1906
-42
1907
-82
1908
+61
1909
-12
1910
-29
1911
-8
1912
-31
1913
-19
1914
+61
1915
+53
1916
-88
1917
-41
1918
-46
1919
-32
1920
-29
1921
+127
1922
+80
1923
-22
1924
+18
1925
-12
1926
-26
Estimated Trends in the Volume of Unemployment.
—It is unfortunate that no direct and reliable statistics are available to show the trend of unemployment in the United States, for it is of the utmost importance to know whether in the long run changes in the industrial organization are increasing or decreasing the risk of unemployment for the worker. The only accurate method of measuring regularly the trend of unemployment is through current registration of the unemployed, which has been achieved only in countries where registration in public employment
uncommon since 1896. The source of data vary in degree of accuracy over this period, and hence it is difficult to make precise comparisons of the extent of unemployment in the different depressions or in normal times.
Table 12.—Percentage Fluctuations from the Average of Unemployment in
Mining, Manufacturing, Building and Transportation,
1897-1926
In April, 1930, a national census of unemployment was taken in connection with the enumeration of the population. As a result there is now available for the first time a comprehensive picture of the extent and distribution of unemployment in all occupations and throughout the country.
Unemployment in Class A alone in April, 1930, as shown by the census figures, had reached a total of a little less than two and a half million persons. Since that time unemployment in the industries for which fairly satisfactory indexes of employment are available has apparently increased by almost 20 percent. In ordinary times it is assumed that many employees dropped from these industries may find employment in other occupations, but the depression of 1931-1932 has been so severe that it is inconceivable that this shrinkage in employment could be absorbed when all lines of activity were undergoing severe curtailment. If the probable increase of unemployment in the other “unknown” industries is held to a minimum a substantial shrinkage in these lines must be added to that which has been estimated for the known industries. Estimates of the total volume of unemployment rest upon very uncertain ground since errors in gauging the probable number of those seeking employment and those actually employed may result in a cumulative error in the unemployment figure. Careful computations upon the basis of the incomplete available data have shown a rising volume of unemployment since the unemployment census of 1930, probably reaching around five million by the summer of 1931 and steadily increasing until July, 1932, a possible total of from eight and one-half to ten million persons or more than 20 percent of the gainfully occupied appear to have been involuntarily idle. These estimates are carefully computed from the known data but the bases for computation are quite limited so that a registration of the unemployed might show a sizeable error in these estimates. The figures exclude from consideration those workers, in Class B of the 1930 census, who are nominally holding jobs although laid off without pay.
Owing to the turnover among both employed and unemployed, the probable minimum unemployment of from four to six hundred thousand workers in manufacturing industry during the 1920's was actually shared by a much larger but indeterminate number of workers in both good and bad years. The trend of actual employment in the trade,
The Occupational Distribution of Unemployment.
—From Table 13 we may learn how unemployment in 1930 was distributed among some of the principal categories of gainfully occupied men and women. The average unemployment among men in all lines of work was 7 percent and among women 4.6 percent. Except in two of the selected groups included in the table it will be seen that the rate for men exceeds that for women.
The rate of unemployment for agriculture is almost negligible. Even though earnings may sink to the vanishing point there is always plenty of work in cultivating and harvesting. By definition the term unemployment is almost entirely inapplicable to agriculture except in the case of farm laborers working directly for wages, for whom the appreciable rate of 4.7 percent of unemployment was shown.
Coal mining, for which the census recorded the high rate of 22 percent of unemployment, is unique in having a significant proportion of the unemployed in Class B. The workers in this highly irregular industry remain in the mining villages at the pit heads ready for summons underground on a day's or an hour's notice. Thus there are thousands of coal miners who regard themselves as having jobs and who are carried on the active rolls of the coal companies, although they may be idle for months at a time.
Unemployment is conspicuous in urban districts where factory and construction workers are found in large numbers. Nearly half the unemployed male workers in 1930 were found in the manufacturing and mechanical occupations. Within this group the heaviest rates of unemployment appear among building trades, the rate for building laborers representing nearly a quarter of those gainfully employed. The high degree of seasonality in construction work means that the building tradesman must ordinarily expect a number of weeks or months of idleness each year. The added hazard of depressional unemployment is especially difficult to cope with in the building industry. For unskilled and semi-skilled factory workers, high rates of unemployment are shown, and the highest percentages of unemployment for women are found in these industries. A
careful analysis of the incidence of unemployment within this group must be sought in other investigations which analyze the relative monthly and yearly fluctuations within individual manufacturing industries.
As compared with the mining and manufacturing industries the rates of unemployment for the distributive and service occupations will be seen
In forestry and fishing the relatively high rate of unemployment is explained in part by the dependence of the lumber industry upon casual laborers—migrant workers who shift with the seasons from the western lumber camps to the docks and thence to the harvest fields, spending a fairly large proportion of each year in transition between these irregular employments.
An unemployment rate of 5.5 percent for worker in domestic and personal service conceals a much higher rate for cook, domestic servants and waiters within the ranks of the larger group. Curtailed income and more careful budgeting in the middle classes is quickly reflected in the lay off of domestic workers in large numbers and in decreased dependence upon outside establishments for the performance of services which can be done by the family at home.
Among professional workers the unemployment rate is somewhat misleading, since a large proportion of these persons are self-employed. The involuntarily workless among them are principally those normally employed by businesses and institutions whose staffs are reduced in number as income falls off.
Occupational Insecurities within Employment.
—It must be remembered that comparison of unemployment rates for occupations does not show comparative occupational security, but only comparative likelihood of obtaining some work of whatever kind. In the census returns a man may be recorded as employed whether or not he has been able to find work in his customary line. Thus there is much insecurity of occupation which is not reflected in the unemployment rates. As general unemployment rises, there is occupational displacement from the more to the less skilled types of work. A recent study
The Incidence of Work Shortage,
Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1932.
Unemployment Seeks the Marginal Worker.
—During periods of severe recession all industries discriminate against the marginal workers. The identity of the marginal worker varies from plant to plant, from shop to shop, from office to office and from one gainful pursuit to another, depending upon the experience, the reason attitude or the whim of the employer. In some cases the older worker is the first to be laid off, in others it is the unskilled, the Negro, or the foreign born; in still others the force of skilled or semi-skilled workers may be diluted by cheaper or quasi-subsidized female labor.
The preference of employers for workers in the prime of life is brought out by the data given in Table 14 which show that unemployment of male workers is lowest between the ages of 30 and 40. In every other five-year age group the rate of unemployment is higher except for workers over 70 and child workers between 10 and 14, at which ages many of those lacking work may not have been identified as gainful workers. Female employment shows increasing stability from 20 to 60 years of age.
Table 15 sheds light on the relative security of the native and the foreign born. Since relatively few immigrant workers are engaged in farming in which the unemployment rate in negligible, comparison by nativity is more informing if agricultural occupations are omitted.
Figures of the federal census of unemployment and of recent local surveys in Buffalo, New Heaven, Philadelphia and Syracuse indicate that foreign born workers suffer more severely from work shortage than do the native whites.
Unemployment in Buffalo,
November, 1929 and November, 1980, Special Bulletins no. 163 and 167, 1930; U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, J. Frederic Dewhurst and Ernest A. Tupper,
Social and Economic Character of Unemployment in Philadelphia April, 1929,
Bulletin no. 520, June, 1930; J. Frederic Dewhurst and Robert R. Nathan,
Social and Economic Character of Unemployment in Philadelphia April, 1930,
Bulletin no. 555, March, 1932; New York (State) Department of Labor,
Unemployment in Syracuse November, 1931,
Bulletin no. 173, 1932; for New Haven, see Hogg,
op cit.
The consistently lower unemployment for women earners than for men may be explained in part by the tendency of women to cease to call themselves gainful workers when work becomes unobtainable provided their earnings are not absolutely essential for sustenance. Another possible factor is the contrast between the wage levels of the two sexes. The lower unemployment rate for women persists throughout all the age levels.
Duration of Unemployment.
—Other figures furnished by the census of 1930 show the duration of idleness of those found unemployed. These figures shed additional light on the comparative insecurity of different
Fig.
19.—Length of unemployment, by age, among male and female workers (1930
groups of workers. Figure 19 reinforces the earlier conclusion that the burden of unemployment falls heavily on male workers of the higher ages. While for total unemployment men under 25 have the highest rate, this is seen to b mostly unemployment of short duration, long period unemployment being much rarer among them than among the older workers. For women workers little variation with age occurs in long term unemployment. The steady increase of long term idleness with advancing age which is evident for men in Figure 19 is borne out by the results of the local surveys already mentioned.
The Older Worker.
—For older workers no discussion of unemployment rates can be complete without reference to enforced retirement. Restrictions on the hiring ages, with consequent barriers against older persons, have been vogue in many lines of employment since the beginnings of thee factory system at least. To what extent has such discrimination
This does not suggest that in 1930 as compared with earlier decades more men under 50 had been discouraged by adverse discrimination into,
ceasing to call themselves gainful workers. Local surveys have shown considerable prevalence of enforced retirement at the present time for men of 50 years and over. It is possible that the slightness of the increase between 1890 and 1930 in the proportion not gainfully occupied for men of ages 55 to 64 is due to a decline in th amount of voluntary retirement, while enforced retirement may have suffered a greater increase. We have already seen that the persisting importance of the older worker in an age of increasing productivity is in large part due to the changing age distribution of the population. Despite discriminations a relatively larger number of older persons in the population naturally maintains the importance of the older worker among the gainfully employed.
The Impact of Unemployment on the Family.
—What effect does decreased work security have upon the family as a social and economic unit? What proportion of families are affected by different rates of unemployment, and how severely do the affected families suffer? The family is the first barrier against the disaster of unemployment.
Special local surveys have shown lower rates of unemployment for gainful workers with family responsibilities, whether by considering marital status alone, by separating heads of families, or by other methods of allotting responsibility. Workers with family responsibility have different age distribution from workers without it, which of itself tends to produce difference in their unemployment rates. But in the New Haven survey, analysis eliminating the age factor has indicated that in the group studied formerly married men probably were one and a fourth times as likely to be out of work as married men of the same age, while single men were nearly half again as likely to be unemployed as the married.
One may question whether the smaller proportion of unemployment among the workers with family responsibility reflects greater job tenacity chiefly, or whether it reflects preference exercised by employers in view of a desire on the part of the community to maintain the employment status of those with dependents. It seems evident enough, however, that the least secure and least stable among those available for work are the unattached males.
In spite of the fact that unmarried men have the highest index of unemployment, analysis shows that the idleness of an earner almost always affects intimately at least one other person. Hence the impact of unemployment upon the family is a matter of great social importance. In the New Haven and Philadelphia surveys it was found that the proportion of families affected by shortage of work was greater than the proportion of earners individually affected, while the New Haven survey further showed that the relative number of the community's children under 14 years of age in the affected families was greater yet. Part of the experimental analysis of unemployment in relation to family composition made in the New Haven survey is shown in Table 17. Of all the earners surveyed,
more than half were in families affected to some extent by idleness or insufficient work. In most of these families, however, some active breadwinners still remained; hence the total loss of income is distinctly less prevalent among families than is idleness among individuals, although the number of families affected to some extent by unemployment exceeds the number of individuals unemployed. While it is difficult if not impossible to gauge the severity of the impact of unemployment on the family, its evident that the effects range all the way from slight inconvenience to extreme privation. Apparently nearly half of the New Haven population in the early summer of 1931 were in families which were directly affected either by complete idleness or by reduced work on the part of some or all of their earners.
What can analysis of unemployment in families suggest concerning probable future trends? The available evidence supports the natural supposition that the larger the number of earners in the family, the smaller is the likelihood that all of them should be unemployed at the same time. In consequence of this, any tendency toward earlier disintegration