Page 481 - Sociology and You

Chapter 13 Political and Economic Institutions 451
Figure 13.7 Changes in Labor Force by Occupational Category. This figure tracks changes in the U.S. labor force from 1900 to 1999. Which labor division is growing the fastest?
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1999.
60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
0
1900 1930
1960
1970 1982 1994
White collar
1996 1997 1999
Occupational Category
Farm Blue collar
How have the three sectors changed historically?
Obviously, the primary sector dominated the preindustrial economy. At that stage of economic development, physical goods were made by hand. This balance began to change with the mechanization of farming in the agri- cultural economy. Mechanical inventions (cotton gin, plow, tractor), along with the application of new scientific methods (seed production, fertilization, and crop rotation), drastically increased production. During the 1800s, the average farmer could feed five workers or so. Today, the figure is eighty. At the same time production increased, labor demands decreased. Primary sector workers have declined from
almost 40 percent of the labor pool in 1900 to about 2 percent today. With other technological advancements in industry (power looms, motors of all types, electrical power) came the shift of agricultural workers from farms to factories, ushering in the secondary sector. As Figure 13.7 indicates, the percentage of the U.S. labor force engaged
in blue-collar jobs reached almost 40 percent in 1900.
Just as in agriculture, technological developments permitted greater production with fewer workers. Since World War II, the fastest- growing occupations in the secondary sector have been white-collar— managers, professionals, sales workers, clerical workers. In 1956, white-collar workers for the first time accounted for a larger propor- tion of the U.S. labor force than blue-collar workers. In manufacturing industries, the number of white-collar workers is now three times the
number of blue-collar workers.
Technological progress did not stop with the secondary sector. As
relative growth in the proportion of workers in goods-producing jobs
was decreasing, the demand for labor in the tertiary section was in- creasing. Fueled by computer technology, the United States economy moved from a manufacturing base to a knowledge, or information,
base. The current demand is for people who can manage information and de- liver services. Today, the proportion of white-collar workers in the U.S. is about 70 percent, up from just below 30 percent in 1930. (See Figure 13.7.)
Blue-collar workers, such as the longshore workers pictured here, may be an endangered species.
Percent of labor force