Robin L. sent us this great visual, from Flare (via), that uses U.S. census data to show how work type has changed over time. The image below displays the percentage of men (blue) and women (pink) in each job between 1850 and 2000:
If you go to the interactive, you can see what percentage of all workers were of any given type, by sex, for each year.
You can also look at work by gender. Look at how women’s participation in paid work has increased over time (but watch out for the shortened y axis):
The trend for men is down and I can’t think of a good reason for why (you?), though the source explains that some modern jobs are left out because they use occupational categories from 1950.
You can also look at each job individually. This is the image for farm laborers (again, with a short y axis):
This data is great for comparative purposes, but leaves a bit to be desired in terms of capturing the whole picture because of the missing occupations.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Comments 13
MeToo — September 19, 2009
In that last graph, does 'farm labourer' only mean paid/for hire labour? Or only field/harvesting work? Because on family farms, farm-related duties have always been shared between spouses, even if there was significant gendered division of labour.
Hugh — September 19, 2009
Possibly I'm missing the point, but don't the two graphs show the percentages of men/women in the total labour force, so the trend for men is down precisely because the trend for women is up?
AndiF — September 19, 2009
Me Too's comment probably applies more to farmers than farm laborers who I suspect are non-family farm workers. I know it was (and probably is) typical for only the husband to be recognized as the farmer, regardless of the wife's contribution.
The same thing happens with Owner/Manager. We had a family business through 3 generations. All of the women were as much involved in running the business and working in it as the men but only the men were considered the owners and I doubt that the women were even counted as working in the business since they got no pay.
Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Link Farm and Open Thread, Brain Scanning Dead Fish Edition — September 21, 2009
[...] The History of Jobs in America. I’m linking mainly because the graphic is so pretty. [...]
Lynne — September 21, 2009
Something that I found interesting was the graph for public officials. The number for 1999 and 2000 are as follows:
1990
Men 0.292%
Women 0.403%
2000
Men 0.077%
Women: 0.097%
First thing that I find interesting is that in both decades, women have made up a higher percentage of public officials. (This is in sharp contrast to the number of women candidates I've seen in major elections.) Another is the sharp overall decline in public officials. Does this mean we are relaying more on volunteers? Have these jobs been cut to save money? I'm not sure, but overall, the 1990s (for some reason) had much higher percentages than any other decade.
All the links that are fit to print | John Ryan | Blog — September 24, 2009
[...] Sociological images: A historical look at the changes in work type In 1850, over 50% of U.S. workers were farmers. Today? Barely over 1%. Meanwhile, office-related jobs have grown from nearly nothing to being the dominant form of employment. If you like demographics, be sure to check out this interactive graphic. [...]
The Best Jobs in America » Sociological Images — March 12, 2010
[...] race, and education, men in “good” jobs by race, race and the economic downturn, changes in type of work over time, gender and the wage gap, trends in academic employment, science/engineering Ph.D.s for women and [...]
COMMON SENSE — March 16, 2021
With outsourcing everything to China, and we have created a generation of shelf stockers and cashiers which in turn only create a constant fluctuation for revenue for China while occupying our time and energy to make them rich. Distracting us from our potential and further success, it leaves higher income careers up for grab also by citizens from other countries, with help from politicians to create an even harder policies on everything to limit involvement in other areas of business directing the majority to support China owned businesses rather than creating entrepeneurships and increasing our human potential. Farmers having to spend more on land tax, sales tax, permits, higher prices for equipment due to lack of American products and American companies. More policy on Farming creates even more issues with pricing making it difficult to compete with foreign prices. We the people screw ourselves, taught to believe that we "Should make the same laws mentioned here" I own a business and couldn't afford a vacation much less one for an employee. Imagine if it were a law, I would lose everything based on a one-sided opinion of how employees should be treated. If it was that important to FORCE someone to give away free money they the government would use tax payers money to do so. This is only an attempt to pull people towards socialism one step at a time.