CHART 2

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

SOURCE

CENSUS OF POPULATION, 1940

Women over the age of 35 years also entered the labor market in unusual numbers in response to wartime labor demands. Most of the extra workers from this group were married women without responsibility for the care of young children. On the other hand, extra participation of young women between the ages of 20 and 34 was limited by the sharp rise in marriages and births after 1940. The entry of young married men into the armed forces, however, caused many young service wives to obtain jobs or to continue working after they normally would have quit.

Of the extra workers among adult men, some had postponed retirement, some had been able to find steady work, after being employed only intermittently before the war, and others, who had been considered virtually unemployable by the rigid prewar standards, found a market for their services during wartime.

Prospective Labor Supply

The effects of migration on the Pacific Coast labor supply are expected to prove more lasting than the effects of participation of extra workers. Wartime population movements followed wellestablished prewar patterns; migration was from areas in which expansion of employment opportunities failed to keep up with population growth to the growing industrial areas. The long-term stability in the geographic distribution of employment opportunities was not basically altered by the war."

Moreover, the widely predicted large-scale exodus of workers from war centers following the end of hostilities failed to materialize. While some return migration undoubtedly took place after the war, cities such as San Diego and Los Angeles had considerably larger populations early in 1946 than in April 1944.10. This is attributable not only to the return of servicemen, but also to the fact that the economy of the Far West was very successful in absorbing workers displaced by reconversion cut-backs in war production. Within a year after the war's end, the number of employees in nonagricultural establishments had reached the VJ-day level. This relatively smooth transition from war to peacetime activities has encouraged workers who migrated during the war to remain in the West.

In view of these postwar developments and the long-term trend westward both in times of prosperity and in times of depression, migration between 1945 and 1950 is likely to be at a rate at least as great as the prewar 1935 to 1940-rate. Only if a period of severe de

See Seymour L. Wolfbein and A. J. Jaffe, Internal Migration and Full Employment (in Journal of the American Statistical Association, Washington, D. C., September 1945).

10 See Bureau of the Census, Population, Series P-SC, No, 183, 1946, and Series CA, Nos. 2 and 5, Washington, April 29 and May 25, 1944.

pression were to set in, would the rate be likely to fall below the prewar level.

Judging from the national experience and prospects, most of the extra workers drawn into the West Coast labor force are likely to drop out by 1950. In the Nation as a whole, only one-fourth of 8 million extra wartime workers were still in the labor force after 1 year of peace. The greatest decline in the extra-worker group occurred among school-age youth and college-age men and women, as the prewar trend toward longer schooling was resumed and large numbers of veterans whose education had been interrupted during the war returned to school with the aid of the "GI Bill of Rights."

Next in importance has been retirement from the national labor force of 12 million women between the ages of 20 and 34 years. This movement stimulated by the current high marriage and birth rates, is consistent with the previous observation that women in the early years of marriage and childbearing are least responsive to employment opportunities. Currently, the fact that there are about 1 million fewer of this age in the labor market, than might have been expected on the basis of prewar trends, indicates the extent to which such women will retire from employment if there are ample opportunities for male wage earners at relatively high wages.

In contrast, only 1 million of the women aged 35 years and over and virtually none of the men aged 25 and over who entered the labor force during the war retired from it during the first postwar year. It is recognized that one of the effects of the urgent wartime demand for labor was to provide employment opportunities for older men and women who had been forced from the labor market because of a lack of work opportunities during the depression. Whether or not they remain in the labor force in the coming years will depend largely upon the availability of employment opportunities.

All factors considered, the number of additional workers in the 1950 United States labor force is expected to be about 1 million— roughly 15 percent of the wartime total. On the same basis, the wartime extra-worker total on the West Coast in 1950 would be about 100,000.

Table 3 presents estimates of prospective labor supply on the West Coast in 1950, under three assumptions as to the volume of interstate migration between 1945 and 1950. In all three projections, it is assumed that participation of extra workers in each State will be 15 percent of the wartime extra-worker total.

Under the medium assumption (B), the West Coast's labor supply in 1950 would come to about 5,800,000 persons-approximately 1,500,000 above the 1940 level and only slightly below the wartime

peak. This increase of 36 percent between 1940 and 1950 compares with an expected gain of 13 percent for the Nation as a whole. California's labor force would show the fastest expansion over the decade, 39 percent, but Oregon and Washington would also show substantial increases of 28 and 27 percent, respectively.

TABLE 3.—Estimated labor force in the United States, by major geographic division, 1940 and 1945, and projected 19501

1 Labor force includes all persons 14 years of age or over working or seeking work, and members of the armed forces. All data are at April seasonal level. Annual average for total United States is about threefourths of a million higher.

For a listing of the States included in each division, see table 2, fcotnote 1.

Preliminary, pending release of Census official estimate of United States total, on basis comparable with current census series.

Corresponding data for each State and detailed description of the estimating procedures appear in Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 893, State and Regional Variations in Prospective Labor Supply (reprinted from Monthly Labor Review, December 1946, with additional data).

All three projections assume that the 1950 labor force of each State will include some "extra" workers who would not be in the labor force on the basis of the prewar patterns of labor-market participation. Participation of extra workers in each State is assumed to be 15 percent of the wartime extra-worker total. All three projections take account of net civilian interstate migration between 1940 and 1945. None of the projections makes allowance for migration from foreign countries between 1940 and 1950. Assumptions with respect to interstate migration between 1945 and 1950 are as follows:

Assumption A.-Whatever new interstate migration takes place between 1945 and 1950 will be offset by return of wartime migrants to their prewar States of residence so that interstate migration in the last half of this decade wil! have no net effect on the size of the labor force in each State.

Assumption B.-The net number of workers who move between States during the period 1945-50 will be the same as would be expected on the basis of 1935-40 experience.

Assumption C.-Net interstate migration of all workers between 1945 and 1950 will be equal to the net interstate migration of civilian workers between 1940 and 1945. Migration of workers on this scale during the second half of the decade could come about with a considerably smaller total population movement than occurred during the first half, because wartime civilian migrants included large numbers of servicemen's dependents and a relatively small proportion of men of working age.

Composition of the Labor Force

An analysis of labor supply on the West Coast should provide some insight into the composition as well as the size of the working force. The sections which follow outline certain key characteristics of the labor supply as well as trends in labor-market participation among the various components of the population.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MIGRANTS

Because of the importance of migration to the labor force of the Pacific Coast region, the personal characteristics of migrants are significant. Migrants to the Coast provide a highly versatile and productive source of labor. Contrary to the popular impression, most of the people who move to the Pacific States are in the young, vigorous age groups. More than half of the in-migrants between 1935 and 1940, for example, were over 20 but under 45 years of age; only 10 percent were over 55 (see table 4).

TABLE 4.—Age distribution of in-migrants to the Pacific coast, 1935–40, by sex

1

1 Source: Sixteenth Census, 1940, Population, Internal Migration 1935-40, Age of Migrants, Bureau of the Census, Washington, 1946.

To a large extent, the newcomers have already been educated and trained at the expense of other States. Approximately half of the 1935-40 in-migrants 25 to 34 years of age had a high-school education or better, and 9 out of 10 had a seventh-grade education or better. This educational level was about as high as that for the comparable group of nonmigrants on the Coast in 1940.

In addition, migrants to the West Coast as a group have had training in many fields of work. Their 1940 occupational distribution in general resembled that of nonmigrants even with respect to the most skilled types of labor. For example, approximately 10 percent of the 1935-40 in-migrant workers and 8 percent of the nonmigrant workers were engaged in professional or semiprofessional occupations in 1940; 12 percent of the migrants and 13 percent of the nonmigrants were employed as craftsmen or foremen.

It is not surprising, in view of these facts, that the California State Reconstruction and Reemployment Commission made the statement, "California got a bargain when 1,300,000 new people came here for war jobs. migration has been one of California's chief avenues to greatness and growth, the new people who have come to this State are a distinct asset." 11

*

11 California State Reconstruction and Reemployment Commission, How Many Californians? Sacramento, Calif., July 1944 (pp. 5, 10).