plant, and about a fifth of the skilled maintenance workers included in this measurement of wage trends. The latest data available indicate that workers employed in nonmanufacturing industries usually received larger increases than those employed in manufacturing. (See table 3 and chart 2.) Even in the West, where office clerical rates rose more in manufacturing during the 4-year period of 1961-65, the manufacturing rate of increase was smaller in 3 of the 4 years, but significantly larger for the year ending in February 1964.

The 4-year all-industry rates of increase for skilled maintenance workers by regions were: Northeast, 11.4 percent; South, 11.4 percent; North Central, 11 percent; and West, 12.6 percent. Although these percentages were smaller than those for unskilled plant workers, the dollar values of the increases were larger for the skilled workers because the percents of increase related to considerably higher base rates.

Comparing the Nation's 10 largest metropolitan areas, percent increases (over the 4-year period) were highest in the city of New York for skilled maintenance and unskilled plant workers and highest in Washington, D.C., for office clerical workers. For all three of these occupational groups, the rates were higher than the national average in Los Angeles-Long Beach, New York, and San Francisco-Oakland, and lower in Detroit and Pittsburgh.

Following is a listing of those of the 80 metropolitan areas studied in which workers averaged

Military and Civilian
Occupational Structures

EDITOR'S NOTE.-The following is excerpted from The Military Specialist: Specialized Manpower Requirements and Resources of the Armed Forces, a doctoral dissertation by Harold Wool, Director for Procurement Policy under the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower). Though reproduced with the consent of the Department of Defense, the opinions and findings are solely those of the author. Minor changes have been made for editorial purposes and markings to denote elisions have not been used.

SINCE the evolution of military technology has broadly paralleled that of the civilian economy, some degree of parallelism in the historical changes in occupational distribution of the military and of the civilian labor forces might reasonably be expected. To test this hypothesis and to obtain additional insights as to the interactions of the military and civilian economies, the broad occupational distributions of the military force structure in the three major war periods (the Civil War, World War I, World II) and in 1960 were compared with the occupational distribution of the civilian labor force as shown in decennial census data for corresponding periods. (See chart.)

For this comparison, seven of the major enlisted occupational groups have been further consolidated into the two broad occupational classes of white-collar workers and manual and service workers. The third military occupational class includes uniquely military or nonspecialized occupations, e.g., ground combat, or Navy general duty (nonrated) personnel. The civilian labor force similarly includes a uniquely civilian occupation class of farm workers.

To permit a more valid comparison with the civilian labor force, officers have been included in the military strength distributions and allocated to the professional and managerial group, under the white-collar class.

At the outset, it must be emphasized that the military occupational distributions shown, particularly for periods prior to World War II, lack statistical precision. With some exceptions, the statistics are based upon the occupational distribu

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tions of authorized or required strengths rather than of actual strengths.

The census labor force statistics refer to the occupational distribution of the gainfully occupied population, or experienced civilian labor force, including experienced workers unemployed at the time of the census, as well as those actually employed. Despite these inherent limitations, the following broad patterns are clearly apparent.

Civil War Period. A century ago, the military forces engaged in the Civil War consisted of nonspecialized personnel, predominantly infantrymen. Only 1 out of 10 military personnel could be classified as engaged in civilian occupational activities in either the white-collar or manual occupational classes, even after arbitrary inclusion of all of the officer corps under the former category. This heavy concentration of military personnel in military functions reflected, in part, the inherently simple force structure of the Union military forces-mainly an aggregation of infantry and artillery units as well as extensive reliance upon civilian labor for performance of needed logistical, administrative, and service functions.

The civilian population from which our military forces were drawn was also nonspecialized. Despite the advances of industrialization during the first half of the 19th century, over half of the total gainfully occupied population of the United States was still engaged in farming at the time of the Civil War (59 percent in 1860 and 53 percent in 1870). To a considerable extent, the Civil War military personnel structure and the pattern of duties of the typical combat soldier thus reflected the traditions, as well as the economy, of an agrarian society.

World War I. A half century later, the occupational structure of the World War I period reflected the full impact of the industrial revolution which had seen its fruition in the intervening decades. The proportion of the military forces in the nonspecialized military occupations had declined to about 40 percent of the total and-similarly the proportion of farmworkers in the civilian labor force had dropped from more than 50 percent during the Civil War decade to less than 30 percent during the decade of World War I (based on the average of the 1910 and 1920 census

distributions). The blue-collar occupational class (including craftsmen, operatives, service workers, and laborers) now comprised-in aggregate-the largest single occupational class in both the military and civilian labor force. The white-collar occupations, which had been of negligible size for enlisted personnel in the Civil War, had also expanded at a relatively rapid rate and now accounted for about 1 out of 6 military positions, and for nearly one-fourth of the civilian work force. Post-World War I. Occupational trends in the half-century since the World War I era reflect a continued convergence of the military and civilian occupational structure. The uniquely military ground combat occupations and the uniquely civilian agricultural occupations both continued their sharp decline in relative size. And-in both the military and civilian work forces-the white-collar occupational class experienced the most rapid relative growth. In the military work force, the white-collar category-including officers-nearly tripled between World War I and 1960. In the civilian labor force, the percentage of white-collar workers nearly doubled-from 23 to 42 percent.

Within the broad white-collar and blue-collar occupational classes, there are also some obvious parallels between military and civilian labor force trends for those major occupational groups where meaningful comparisons can be made. For example, although the overall proportion of personnel in the blue-collar occupations remained virtually unchanged between World War II and 1960, in both the military and civilian forces, there was a significant upward shift in skill level: The percentage of mechanics and repairmen increased while the proportion of workers in the less skilled operative, laborer, and service worker occupations declined. Similarly, within the white-collar occupational group, the relative growth since the World War I period was greatest in the professional-technical, and in the administrative-clerical occupations, in contrast to a much more modest increase in the proportion of civilian sales workers. The common pattern of change evident in our summary statistics is clearly a resultant of common forces operating over a period of decades upon both the military and the civilian occupational structures. The most fundamental of these forces has been the pervasive influence of scientific advances and technological change upon means

of production, transportation, and communication, as well as upon nearly every other facet of economic activity. Increased mechanization and the onset of automation; the expansion of the scale of production and of markets; the higher standards of living and personnel welfare-all of these, and related influences, molded the pattern of occupational specialization in both the civilian and military economies. All of these influences have contributed to the shift in manpower distribution from relatively unspecialized work activities, relying mainly upon hand labor (in civilian life) or on the energies of the individual foot soldier, cavalryman, or seaman (in military service), to the specialized activities of our contemporary economy.

Educational and Mental Demands

1

These occupational trends resulted in an increase in educational and mental-level requirements in both the civilian and military forces. In the latter, it was not until the World War II mobilization that the full range and diversity of enlisted occupational specialties first made its appearance. Personnel requirements in the enlisted occupational classes with relatively high mental or educational requirements grew from only 20 percent of the World War I force to nearly 50 percent at the end of World War II. Associated with this growth was an increased awareness of the importance of qualitative standards in screening, classification, training, and allocation of personnel.

The period since World War II has seen a continuation of the forces set in motion during the mobilization, with a further upward shift in the mental aptitude distribution of occupational requirements. By 1960, personnel requirements in the more demanding enlisted occupations accounted for 65 percent of the total. Instead of the mass army of combat troops and general-duty support personnel of four decades ago, the enlisted force now comprises a heterogeneous array of specialties, requiring a wide diversity of skills. aptitudes, and educational backgrounds. In the upper range of this occupational hierarchy, a sig nificant proportion of the most technical specialties such as electronics technicians, intelligence specialists, and computer computer programers-must

1 Includes electronics, other technical, administrative, clerical. and selected mechanical repair and crafts occupations.

have the capability and educational background which equips them for highly technical training courses, comparable to those given in technical institutes or in junior colleges. At the lower end of the scale, the enlisted force still includes substantial percentages of personnel in occupations that are more modest in their mental-educational demands.

Even the latter occupations, however, can scarcely be equated in mental or educational demands with their counterparts of one or more generations ago-much less with those of the Civil War period. Many of the enlisted occupational groups which have been ranked, on the basis of recent mental aptitude distributions, in the lower one-third of our modern enlisted force-such as automotive mechanics and certain other skilled or semiskilled occupations-were in fact considered as highly technical by earlier standards.

2 Includes ground combat, services, automotive and shipboard machinery mechanics, and other mechanics and craftsmen not classified elsewhere.

The longer term increase in mental or educational demands is illustrated, too, by the contrast between the skills and knowledge required of the combat specialist in today's forces-whether he be an airborne infantryman, an artillery or armored vehicle crewman-as compared to those of the combat soldier of earlier periods. The typical Civil War, or even the World War I, infantry soldiers-although called upon for some of the same attributes of leadership, courage, stamina, and innate practical intelligence-could scarcely be expected to cope, without additional education and training, with the far more sophisticated weapons, equipment, and tactical communications systems whose operation has become an integral part of the duties of the modern combat soldier.

Occupational Distributions

Although the broad trends of change in the military and civilian occupational structures have followed generally parallel lines, a more detailed analysis reveals that in 1960-as well as in earlier periods the frequency of various specific occupations within the military job structure differs sharply from that of similar occupations in the civilian economy. Since we are more directly concerned with the potentials of interchangeability of skills and trained personnel between the military and civilian labor forces, the table compares the relative frequency of similar occupations among experienced male civilian workers as reported in the 1960 census. The occupations have been ranked in six broad groups, based on the comparative frequency of the occupation in the military versus the civilian labor force. We have not attempted to catalog all enlisted jobs or all civilian occupations generally omitting those civilian occupations which were officer-type (mainly professional and managerial) and, of course, many occupations where even an approximate matching between military and civilian classifications appeared impracticable. On the other hand, we have included certain major enlisted or civilian occupational groups with respect to which statistics for the direct counterparts were not available, but where we could safely infer that the corresponding frequency rate, if reported, would be very small. These occupational "gaps" have been identified in the table.

The degree of contrast between the two occupational structures may be summarized as follows: 13.4 percent of all enlisted positions have no civilian counterpart (i.e., ground combat).

38 percent of enlisted positions are in occupations which account for only about 1.5 percent of the experienced male civilian labor force, e.g., aircraft mechanics, shipboard mechanics, electronics, munitions, and weapons mechanics.

An additional 29 percent of all enlisted positions are in occupations which account for 9.6 percent of civilian male workers.

Thus 80 percent of all enlisted jobs are in occupations which account for only slightly over 10 percent of the civilian male work force. On the other hand, the occupational groups with high civilian frequencies shown in the table account in combination for 43.1 percent of the male civilian labor force, but for only 7.6 percent of identifiable enlisted positions.

Even the above comparisons tend to overstate the degree of correspondence of the military and

COMPARATIVE FREQUENCY OF SELECTED OCCUPATIONS IN ARMED SERVICES AND IN CIVILIAN MALE LABOR FORCE, 1960

civilian occupational distributions. Many of the matchings in the table involve occupations with a broad functional similarity in coverage, but where the skills and knowledge required may differ markedly, due to differences in equipment. organization, and methods. For example, the military electronics equipment technician, respon sible for maintaining a missile guidance control system, cannot be compared too well with the typi cal civilian radio or television repairman. Nor can a mechanic responsible for maintenance of an armored tank be equated with a civilian aut mechanic. Conversely, many civilian occupa tions-particularly in the skilled trades-demand a higher degree of skill than is required of the typical enlisted man in counterpart occupations

The contrasts in occupational structure stem basically from the fact that our modern military services despite their broad range of functions and varied occupational needs are in no sense a self-contained economy. They rely upon the civilian economy for nearly all of their commodity inputs of weapons, equipment, and supplies, and for a wide diversity of services, ranging from research and development to the other professional administrative, and custodial-type services per formed by their civilian employees or by contrac tors. Their closest correspondence, industrially. with the civilian economy, is in transportation communications, and in certain of the service industries. In these functions, the relative personnel requirements of the military far exceed those of the civilian economy. Finally, it must be borne in mind that certain clerical, technical, and service occupations, which are female occupations in civilian life, are in fact staffed within the military by male enlisted personnel-particularly since enlisted women in service, as of June 1963, totaled only about 20,000, or less than 1 percent of aggregate enlisted strength

Military Duties

Thus far, our contrast of military and civilian occupational structures has referred solely to the specialized occupational content of the duties of enlisted men. Fundamental to any comparison of military and civilian occupational duties is the fact that with limited exceptions-the enlisted man unlike the civilian worker is rarely utilized exclusively in the duties of his occupational specialty. The very nature of the military mission