who are workers have been influential also. And these changes, in turn, reflect changes in employment opportunities and many other economic and social factors. The greatly increased labor force participation of women, especially of those between 45 and 65 years of age, has been the most striking recent development in this field. Although they currently constitute only one-third of the country's workers, women have accounted for about three-fifths of the entire labor force increase over the 1947-62 period. While women were drawn into employment in large numbers during World War II, their attachment to the labor force was thought to be temporary and due to the exigencies of war. Since 1947 the more lasting changes in their employment patterns have become evident. Between 1947 and 1962 the number of women workers rose by 7.6 million, as compared to the 5.5 million rise in men workers. The number of women workers 45 and over more than doubled. During this period the proportion of all women in the labor force rose from 31 to 37 percent while the corresponding "labor-force participation rates" for men declined from 84 to 79 percent. In The steady movement of women from the home to outside employment has been brought about partly by the movement of population to urban areas, where women can take advantage of the employment opportunities in clerical, sales, manufacturing, and service occupations. At the same time, care of the home has become a less timeconsuming activity as a result of new laborsaving equipment, packaged foods, and the availability of kindred services of many kinds. addition, the rising levels of education have helped to qualify more women for work outside the home, and they have also motivated many to work in order to use their training or pay for a better education for their children. Economic pressures and changes in traditional attitudes toward the employment of women, especially married women, have also contributed to the movement of women into paid jobs. The extent of women's work, of course, continues to be related to their family responsibilities. For women, labor force participation reaches a peak in the late teens and early twenties, as they leave school, and then drops in the middle twenties as marriage and motherhood bring withdrawals from the work force. After they reach 35 or thereabouts and their children reach school age, the proportion employed outside the home rises. It reaches a new peak at ages 45 to 54 and then tends to drop off, since many women stop working at a younger age than is customary for men. The recent rise in women's employment has occurred almost entirely among married women. From 1947 to 1962 the number of married women in the labor force rose from 7.5 to 14.8 million, accounting for 56 percent of the total labor force growth. There was relatively little change in the number of unmarried women workers (single, divorced, and widowed) during this period. Labor force participation of men Less dramatic than the increase in women workers but significant also are the changes in the labor force activity of men. Though the total number of men workers has continued to rise because of population growth, the rate of labor force participation has declined both among boys and among men past 60. The proportion of workers among boys 14 to 19 years of age dropped from 54 to 44 percent between 1947 and 1962. One other factor underlying this decrease has been the movement of population to cities, where work opportunities for youth are limited in comparison with the extensive unpaid family labor, in which they are engaged on farms. Important, also, has been the extension of education brought about in part by rising educational requirements for employment (discussed later in this report). The labor force participation rate of young men aged 20 to 24 also declined slightly during the latter part of the period though it rose in the early postwar years. In the next older age groups, 25 to 54 years, nearly all men continue to work or look for work, as they have traditionally done. Among men 55 to 64 the proportion of workers has always been somewhat smaller than among the younger age groups, reflecting a greater incidence of disabling illness and some retirements, but the proportion showed no tendency to change in this age group until fairly recently and it is still constant for men under 60. For those aged 60 to 64, however, the labor force participation. rate has been edging downward. During the past year this trend may have been influenced by the Social Security Act Amendment (effective in August 1961) permitting men to retire at age 62 with reduced benefits. The decline in labor force activity has been much more marked in the case of men past 65. In this age group the labor force participation rate fell from 48 percent in 1947 to 30 percent in 1962. A factor in this decrease-as in the declining labor force participation of youth and the contrary trend for women-has been the movement of people from farms, where older men tend to work as long as they can, to cities, where their employment opportunities are likely to be more limited. The earlier retirements made possible by the social security laws and the expansion of private pension plans have also had a marked effect on the proportion of workers among men past 65-much more so than in the 60- to 64-year-old group. The increased employment of women in their 40's and 50's-which adds to family savings and increases family retirement income through the separate retirement benefits for which the wives qualify on the basis of their own employment-may also have helped speed their husbands retirement. THE RISING EDUCATIONAL LEVEL OF THE LABOR FORCE A substantial rise in the educational attainment of American workers has been achieved in recent decades, as young people with a higher average level of education than their fathers-and even than their older brothers-move into the labor force and older workers leave it. The relative numbers of workers who are college graduates have risen especially fast in the past 10 years-from 7.9 percent in 1952 to 11 percent in 1962, for those 18 years old and over.2 (See app. table B-11.). The increase in the proportion that have had at least a high school education is also noteworthy; this proportion rose from 42.8 to 53.8 percent over the past decade, a gain of more than 25 percent. At the lower end of the educational ladder. the proportion of workers with less than 5 years of school fell from 7.3 to 4.6 percent. But this 4.6 percent of the labor force represents 3.1 million men and women workers, all of whom had less than the minimum schooling needed for "functional literacy" in the presentday economic and technological world. An interesting development in the past decade is that men have been rapidly overtaking their women coworkers in years of school completed. In 1952 the median years of school completed was 10.4 for men workers and 12 for women-a difference of 1.6 years. By 1962 this difference had practically disappeared, with the median for men at 12 years and that for women at 12.2 years. The most striking educational gain recorded for men, as compared to women workers, was in the proportion completing 4 or more years of college. The persistent differences between white and nonwhite workers in educational attainment have also been dramatically reduced in recent years. In the past decade, the proportion of nonwhite workers with at least a high school education nearly doubled, rising from 17 to 32 This population includes a number of workers who have not yet completed their formal education. percent. The corresponding increase for white workers was much less rapid-from 46 to 57 percent. At the same time, the proportion of nonwhite workers who had completed 8 years of school or less fell from 65 to 45 percent. The improvement in educational attainment has extended, in greater or lesser degree, to both men and women workers in every age group from the youngest to the oldest. It has been much more pronounced in some groups than others, however. Though the educational level of the younger women workers (18 to 34 years old) rose only slightly during the past decade, the corresponding increase among the younger male workers was substantial. Furthermore, the largest relative gain in the educational level for any age-sex group in the civilian labor force was registered for men 35 to 44 years old-many of them veterans who reaped great educational benefits from the GI bill. Gains in educational attainment have also extended to workers in many different occupational groups. In a variety of occupations, relatively high levels of education are now the rule, though there are, of course, wide differences in education among occupational groups-as shown in the following tabulation of median years of school completed as of March 1962: Though the professional and technical worker group includes many people in occupations such as technician, actor, or musician-for which college graduation is not normally required, the average educational preparation of this group now exceeds 4 years of college. For proprietors and salaried managers and officials, and also clerical and salesworkers, some post-high school education is now common. Skilled workers average slightly over 3 years of high school, with operatives and service workers not far behind in educational attainment. Only for farmworkers, laborers, and private household workers is an eighth-grade education still the average level of schooling. These findings coupled with the expectation of rapidly expanding manpower demand in professional and other high-level occupations and of harrowing opportunities for the unskilled-are among the many strands of evidence pointing toward the economic necessity of increased educational preparation for employment. 1 See ch. 7, pp. 96-100. [From the Manpower Report of the President, 1962] The unprecedented growth in the labor force in prospect during the 1960's is one of the most basic factors in any appraisal of this country's economic growth potential and of the measures required to surmount its employment and unemployment problems. The United States will be favored during this decade, as never before in its history, by an abundance of manpower-with a level of educational preparation above that of previous generations though still, in major areas, below present-day needs. In overall numerical terms, we will have the labor supply required as one element in achieving a large measure of economic growth. And conversely, the need for rapid economic expansion will be underscored by the ever-mounting numbers of workers available for employment. There is no assurance, however, that these workers will have the education, training, and skills demanded by our rapidly advancing technology and by the correspondingly rapid shifts in industrial and occupational employment requirements. Thus, the national aim must be not only to attain and maintain generally full employment but also, as part of the effort to achieve this goal, to insure that the forthcoming supply of workers will have the preparation required to fit them for emerging and shifting occupational needs. In order to formulate guidelines for effective efforts to solve these problems, a knowledge of the general magnitude and composition of our future labor supply is essential. Without this, it would be difficult indeed to assess the dimensions of the country's manpower potential and to recommend measures to insure that this most precious national resource is not wasted. The present chapter opens with an examination of the population and labor force changes expected up to 1975. Later sections present projections of employment for major industries and occupations, based on an analysis of population, technology, and other factors; discuss the problems involved in estimating the supply of personnel in different occupations; and present illustrative balance sheets of manpower demand and supply for a few selected occupations. As the discussion makes clear, much further statistical and analytical work is required to make possible a definitive appraisal of the Nation's developing manpower problems and the measures required for their solution. However, the information and conclusions here presented, though at many points preliminary and tentative, indicate both the general nature and urgency of some of the major problems in this field and the pathways down which we must move toward their solution. |