Occupations, Distribution of

Historical Developments

The period since the Industrial Revolution has witnessed a number of significant changes in the distribution of occupations. Estimates suggest that up to 80 percent of the U.S. population were self-employed in the early 19th century—many in agricultural labor. However, the agricultural labor force has been in steady decline since the middle of the 20th century. For example, in the 1950s, the U.S. agricultural labor force declined by around 1.7 million, and 2 million people left agricultural work in the 1960s. Just 1.4 percent of workers were engaged in agricultural work in 2010.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a significant proportion of the labor force was engaged in manual labor. Manual jobs are typically categorized according to levels of skill: workers are classed as unskilled, semiskilled, and skilled. The 20th century also witnessed a steep decline in the relative share of manual workers. In Britain in 1911, some 79 percent of jobs were manual; this figure fell to 59 percent in 1971 and 44 percent in 2001. The changes in number are also staggering: whereas there were 8 million manual workers in 1979, today just 3 million people work in these types of occupations.

These figures reflect the transformation of most Western economies from being dominated by blue-collar occupations in manufacturing to white-collar work in the services. Service jobs are customer-oriented and typically involve caring for or helping others, such as cleaners, caretakers, [Page 640]hairdressers, security guards, and food service workers. At the turn of the century, service-oriented jobs were relatively rare, but the share of labor hours spent in service jobs grew by one-third between 1980 and 2005.

There are myriad and complex factors driving the transformation of the employment structure. The replacement of many manual jobs with labor-saving machinery is one crucial factor, but in the West, the decline of the manufacturing industry has also been attributed to competition from developing economies in the east, such as China and Korea. Accordingly, there are links between the extent to which an economy is developed and the allocation of labor between industries. The wealthier the economy, the larger the proportion of occupations in services and the smaller the proportion of employment in manufacturing and agriculture.

Occupational Upgrading

Toward the close of the 20th century, it was generally recognized that many of the countries of western Europe were experiencing a period of “occupational upgrading.” In other words, highly skilled occupations were expanding while occupations that demand lower levels of skills were shrinking. One of the fastest-growing employment sectors in the 20th and 21st centuries was the professional occupations. Two groups of professional workers can be distinguished: higher and lower professionals. Higher professionals include accountants, engineers, architects, doctors, and lawyers, whereas lower professionals are generally those occupations located in the public sector: librarians, social workers, nurses, and school teachers. The overall growth in professional occupations comprise expansion of both higher and lower professionals.

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