02458cam a22002537 4500001000600000003000500006005001700011008004100028100002100069245008500090260006600175490005200241500001500293520138200308530006101690538007201751538003601823690007801859690007501937710004202012830008702054856003702141856002602178h0058NBER20140713034736.0140713s1994 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aGoldin, Claudia.10aLabor Markets in the Twentieth Centuryh[electronic resource] /cClaudia Goldin. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc1994.1 aNBER historical working paper seriesvno. h0058 aJune 1994.3 aThe study of the labor market across the past hundred years reveals enormous progress and also that history repeats itself and has come full circle in some ways. Progress has been made in the rewards of labor -- wages, benefits, and increased leisure through shorter hours, vacation time, sick leave, and earlier retirement. Labor has been granted added security on the job and more safety nets when unemployed, ill, and old. Progress in the labor market has interacted with societal changes. Women's increased participation in the paid labor force is the most significant. The virtual elimination of child and full-time juvenile labor is another. Two of the most pressing economic issues of our day demonstrate that history repeats itself. Labor productivity has been lagging since the 1970s. It was equally sluggish at other junctures in American history, but the present has unique features. The current slowdown in the United States has been accompanied by a widening in the wage structure. Rising inequality is a far more serious problem because of the coincidence. The wage structure was as wide in 1940 as today but there is, to date, no hard evidence when it began its upward trend. The wage structure has, therefore, come full circle to what it was more than a half century ago. Union strength has also come full circle to that at the turn of this century. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aN31 - U.S. • Canada: Pre-19132Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aN32 - U.S. • Canada: 1913-2Journal of Economic Literature class.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aHistorical Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. h0058.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/h0058 uurn:doi:10.3386/h0058