ABSTRACT
The Oakland data were collected in 1949 as part of a study of labor mobility made by the Institute of Industrial Relations of the University of California. The work histories which were collected are life histories-respondents were asked to supply information about every job which they held after entering the labor market. The city of Oakland, which at the time of the study had a population of 400,000, is one of the two cities which constitute the heart of the San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area. This area consists of a group of six contiguous counties grouped around San Francisco Bay, and has a population of around two and a half million persons, of whom approximately one million are in the labor force. Many Oakland residents work outside of Oakland, either in other East Bay cities or in San Francisco, and conversely, many of Oakland's business establishments have employees who live outside the city.
