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Title: Technological Changes and the Employment of Older Manufacturing Workers in Early-Twentieth-Century America

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2007

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Abstract: This study explores how broadly-defined technological changes (including organizational and managerial transformations as well as innovations in production methods) in the U.S. manufacturing industries affected the probabilities of long-term unemployment and of retirement of older male workers in the early-twentieth-century United States. For this purpose, industry-level statistics reported in the 1899 and 1909 manufacturing census were linked to the IPUMS of the 1910 census, and to a longitudinal sample of Union Army veterans. The results suggest that the rapid technological changes had both favorable and adverse impacts on the employment of older workers. On one hand, technological progress improved the employment prospect of older workers by enhancing labor productivity and by formalizing the workplace management. On the other hand, emergence of large corporations and technological shifts toward more capital- and technology-intensive productions made it increasingly difficult for older workers to remain in the labor market, perhaps by increasing the requirements for physical strength, mental agility, and ability to acquire new skills. It is likely that the overall impact of technological changes on the employment of older workers during the industrial era was negative.

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Authors: Lee, Chulhee

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Institution: Seoul National University

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Publisher Location: Seoul, Korea

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Aging and Retirement, Other

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