The Industrial Distribution of the Urban and Rural Workforces: Estimates for the United States, 1870–1910

The purpose of this article was to present the estimates of the urban and rural workforces derived from census data. These censusbased estimates present a fairly consistent pattern of change over time, and appear useful even in their present state. These estimates should be tested further against other time series so that we will eventually have a sound urban and rural workforce series with which to better analyze the process of structural change. The limited use to which these estimates were put in the present article yielded some interesting results, as well as some suggestions for further research.In terms of the United States workforce, changes in the industrial distribution reflect predominantly the relative shift in population from rural to urban areas, and little change in the workforce structure of either area. Indeed, at the sectoral level, there appears to have been more change occurring in rural than in urban areas. On the other hand, within the service sector there was more erratic change occurring in the rural areas than in the cities, but the differences may be easily reconciled. The urban sector experienced a more rapid increase and greater variability in the participation rate than did the rural sector. The pattern of variability was compared with the known evidence on unemployment, and variation in the former appears explicable in terms of variation in the latter.