Employment Handicaps of Older Workers

Abstract

THE ACCELERATED PACE of technological progress, especially since World War I, has placed a premium upon the services of youth in American industry. With the transition from an agricultural to an urban-industrial economy, numerous older persons who otherwise might have been gainfully employed long after the conventional retirement age were committed to the industrial scrap-heap. Due largely to greater productive efficiency iff agriculture, moreover, the long-term trend unquestionably has been toward proportionately fewer workers on farms. In this connection, it is significant that agricultural employment in the nation as a whole actually attained its peak nearly forty years ago. According to the United States Bureau of Agricultural Economics, if figures for the years 1910-14 are used to represent the base period, with an index number of 100, by 1946 the index for farm employment had dropped to 83, while that of production per worker had climbed to 192. The cityward migration of surplus farm population, which was so pronounced during and after the two world wars, tended to aggravate further what was already becoming a serious problem in industrial areas, the displacement of men of maturity and expericnce by younger workers. On the farm the older worker traditionally has been at a distinct advantage, compared to the city, since it is customary to assign the less strenuous routine tasks to elderly persons. Furthermore, the work usually can be tapered off in keeping with the physical limitations of advancing age. But in modern, large-scale industry, opportunities for sustained employment at a slower pace are decidedly limited. Particularly is this true of those desirous of utilizing their previous training along lines in which they are most proficient from the standpoint of quality of output rather than of speed of production. It was the depression of the Nineteen Thirties that accentuated the discouraging problems faced by older workers. For those in the labor force, temporarily unemployed, who were seeking employment in their former occupations, the prospects were especially dismal. Symptomatic of diminishing employment opportunities for the middle-aged was the growth of the Forty Plus movement in large cities scattered throughout the