Industrialization and Income Change

Abstract

Bluestone and Harrison's Deindustrialization of America (1982) focuses on the consequences for communities of industrial change. We explore this concern by examining the income implications of the dramatic shift in American industry from urban to rural settings. Using data from all existing counties in the United States, industrial change is examined during the 1960s—a historically important decade of unprecedented affluence and unprecedented change in rural-urban manufacturing employment. Regression analysis of shifts in median family income shows that although small towns benefit somewhat from the migration of industry or the expansion of existing facilities, these benefits are less than the income lost from a decline in manufacturing jobs in large metropolitan areas. The findings are consistent with Bluestone and Harrison's contention that industrial change results in a net loss of income to American workers. A major conclusion is that at the same time many American sociologists were celebrating alliances between business and labor, forces were at work undermining worker income and prosperity. Importantly, these forces were at work during a decade of widespread prosperity and prior to the recent difficulties in the American economy.