Coping at the Crossroads: Societal and Educational Transformation in the United States

As the nature of a workforce changes over time, one broadly-defined group of workers diminishes in numbers while another group increases in numbers. For example, during the period 1890-1910, the major proportion of the workforce in the United States shifted from agriculture to industrial production (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975). Figure 1 presents the concept. Relentless technological developments gave rise to new job classifications and to increased employment opportunities in industrial production. At the same time, technological developments diminished employment opportunities in another field, in this case, agriculture. Over the long term, then, one might expect that demand for groups of occupations will increase over time, but will be expected to decline when that employment sector is eclipsed by yet another employment sector, driven by a new technological wave.