ABSTRACT
The amount of total education of younger workers in the labor force is markedly greater than that of older workers. The American labor force is composed of people with widely different ethnic and racial backgrounds, who have been reared in a variety of different social environments. Older workers differ as to amount and quality of education from the newer recruits to industrial work. The age distribution of the working population, and the amount and quality of its education, increase distinctions among labor force members. The American labor force is heterogeneous in its social origins. Vast streams of European workers moved to the United States throughout the nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth. The politics of labor unions has reflected “ethnic layering” of the labor force. Discrimination against Negroes in employment has tended to exclude them from higher-level jobs, and to force them into less-skilled and lower-paid occupations.
