In December 2012, the "U.S. Department of Education Chapter of Blacks In Government (BIG) Report: The Status of the African American Workforce at the U.S. Department of Education" (ED538186) described racial and demographic data by grade levels for Pay Period 11 in 2012 compared to similar data towards the end of the Bush administration.…

The labor force is the number of people aged 16 or older who are either working or looking for work. It does not include active-duty military personnel or institutionalized people, such as prison inmates. Quantifying this total supply of labor is a way of determining how big the economy can get. Labor force participation rates vary significantly…

After a long decline, the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of older men in the United States leveled off in the 1980s, and began to increase in the late 1990s. We examine how changes in Social Security rules affected these trends. We attribute only a small portion of the decline from the 1960s-80s to the increasing generosity of Social…

Latino male students are "vanishing" from the American education pipeline, a trend that is especially evident at the secondary and postsecondary levels. The question of why Latino males are vanishing from America's colleges is complex, and this scholarly article explores some of the socio-cultural factors, peer dynamics, and labor force demands…

Between 1984 and 1993, work activity increased among men under 65 who had retired early. Factors influencing this trend include changes in pensions, increased health care costs, longer life expectancy, more layoffs, and more opportunities for flexible schedules and less physically demanding work. (SK)

Based on several tables of working life, the article provides some basic perspectives on major labor market developments for men and is intended to provide a background for the study of training and retraining needs in our modern industrial society. Among the developments discussed were: (1) Work life expectancy declined by one-half year between…

Decomposes variance in black and white male labor force participation rates across metropolitan areas into: local labor market effects, labor force structure effects, and effects from the covariation between the two. Data from the 1990 Public Use Micro Sample show difference by race and suggest that most variation results from workers with similar…

Discusses recent labor force trends and how they affect research methodology. Tables are included which indicate new estimates and trends in worklife expectancy, measures of labor force mobility, and trends in mobility rates. (CT)

Despite child labor and school attendance laws, approximately 1.6 million young teens held jobs in 1979. The labor force participation rate of girls is fast approaching that of boys, although the latter are employed in more varied occupations. (LRA)

When chronicling how less-skilled workers have fared in the U.S. since the late 1970's, existing literature often cites their falling wages and declining participation in the labor force. Most research describing these trends, however, focuses primarily on men, failing to account for the fact that less-skilled women's real wages have not fallen,…

This report examines the extent to which Americans participated in the labor force, worked, or looked for work during 1979. It also takes a look at changes in work activity over the past decade as reflected in the work experience data. (Author)

The 1970s were marked by an increase in the level of education attainment of the average worker. By 1979 thirty-six per cent of all workers over 18 completed at least one year of college, and the percentage of workers not completing high school declined considerably. While the proportion of men participating in the labor force continued to fall,…

An analysis of U.S. Census data regarding race, age, education, occupation, and income of the male civilian labor force in 1960 and 1970 yields four major conclusions. (1) There have been large reductions in occupational discrimination at all ages, with the change clearest for young men. (2) The reduction of occupational discrimination is clearest…

The impacts of foreign immigration on population and labor force growth during the 1990s varied widely across U.S. geographic regions, divisions and states. New England was far more dependent than nearly all other regions on the new wave of foreign immigrants to achieve its population growth and labor force growth during the past decade. In fact,…

Growth or decline in the labor force can be viewed as stemming from changes in population and labor force participation, and from their interaction. In the period 1940-70 a large increase occurred in the female labor force, particularly in the South, while a decrease was noted in the participation of nonwhites. When the sexes are considered…