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Labor Markets in the Twentieth Century

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  • Claudia Goldin
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    Abstract

    The study of the labor market across the past hundred years reveals enormous progress and also that history repeats itself and has come full circle in some ways. Progress has been made in the rewards of labor -- wages, benefits, and increased leisure through shorter hours, vacation time, sick leave, and earlier retirement. Labor has been granted added security on the job and more safety nets when unemployed, ill, and old. Progress in the labor market has interacted with societal changes. Women's increased participation in the paid labor force is the most significant. The virtual elimination of child and full-time juvenile labor is another. Two of the most pressing economic issues of our day demonstrate that history repeats itself. Labor productivity has been lagging since the 1970s. It was equally sluggish at other junctures in American history, but the present has unique features. The current slowdown in the United States has been accompanied by a widening in the wage structure. Rising inequality is a far more serious problem because of the coincidence. The wage structure was as wide in 1940 as today but there is, to date, no hard evidence when it began its upward trend. The wage structure has, therefore, come full circle to what it was more than a half century ago. Union strength has also come full circle to that at the turn of this century.

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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Historical Working Papers with number 0058.

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    Date of creation: Jun 1994
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    Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0058

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    1. Claudia Goldin & Robert A. Margo, 1991. "The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid- Century," NBER Working Papers 3817, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    8. John J. Donohue III & James Heckman, 1991. "Continuous Versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks," NBER Working Papers 3894, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Goldin, Claudia, 1998. "America's Graduation from High School: The Evolution and Spread of Secondary Schooling in the Twentieth Century," Scholarly Articles 2664307, Harvard University Department of Economics.
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    19. Jonathan S. Leonard, 1985. "The Effectiveness of Equal Employment Law and Affirmative Action Regulation," NBER Working Papers 1745, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    Cited by:
    1. Susan B. Carter & Richard Sutch, 1997. "Historical Perspectives on the Economic Consequences of Immigration into the United States," NBER Historical Working Papers 0106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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