THE GROWTH OF WHITE‐COLLAR EMPLOYMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN 1951 TO 1971*
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1977.tb00071.x |
| Author | R. F. Elliott |
| Published date | 01 March 1977 |
| Date | 01 March 1977 |
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
Vol.
XV
No.
1
THE GROWTH
OF
WHITE-COLLAR EMPLOYMENT IN
GREAT BRITAIN
1951
TO
1971*
OVER
the period
195
1
to
197
1
the number of white-collar employees in Great Bri-
tain rose from
5.74
to
8.88
million.' Over the same period the number of manual
employees fell by
1.85
million with the result that by
1971
white-collar workers
accounted for almost
42
per cent of all employees.
1.83
million
of
the
3.14
mil-
lion rise in white-collar employment over the period resulted from the growth in
total employment within certain industries and services and therefore reflected the
changing industrial structure of our economy. The remaining
1.3
1
million, how-
ever, resulted from the changing occupational structure within industries and ref-
lected the substitution of white-collar for the blue-collar workers within most in-
dustries and services. The purpose of this note is to examine and quantify these
developments in
an
attempt to distinguish between changes in the distribution
of
employment between industries and changes in the relative proportions of white
and blue-collar workers within industries as proximate causes of this substantial
change in the occupational composition of employment.
Until recently, there existed no comprehensive annual data on the proportions
of white and blue-collar workers in the economy. The decennial Census of
Population is the only detailed and comprehensive estimate
of
the industrial
distribution of employees by occupation, although since
1963
the Department
of
Employment has produced an annual occupational analysis of the distribution of
employees in manufacturing industry. Since its inception in
1968,
the New Earn-
ings Survey has provided some breakdown of the main occupations within each
industry grouping, but neither of these latter sources is sufficiently com-
prehensive for the purposes of this analysis. Consequently, the analysis which fol-
lows relies primarily on information provided by the four Censuses of Population
over the period
1951
to
1971.
Over the period since
195
1
the proportion of total employment accounted for
by white-collar employees has risen dramatically. From only
29
per cent of em-
ployees in all industries and services they rose to almost
42
per cent in
1971.
This
rise of almost
55
per
cent in the number of white-collar workers contrasted with
a
rise of only
6
per cent in total employment over the same period. The increased
share of white-collar employment meant that by the end of our period manual em-
ployment had fallen by
1,845,000
Part
of
the increase in white-collar employment can be explained by the shift in
employment from the primary, and to a lesser extent from the secondary sector,
to the tertiary sector (see Table
1).
The tertiary, or largely service sector, is rela-
tively intensive in its use of white-collar labour and
it
is
a
characteristic of the
more developed economies that an increasing proportion of employment is ac-
counted for by this sector. We should not be suprprised, therefore, to find that
This note is a preliminary to
an
S.S.R.C. financed study of movements in salary levels and
structures in the
post-war
period. The financial support
of
the S.S.R.C. and helpful comments and
suggestions of Professors D.
I.
MacKay and
G.
S.
Bain and Mr
J.
L.
Fallick
and Mr R. Price are
gratefully acknowledged.
I
am also grateful to Miss A. Stewart for statistical assistance. Any errors
or
omissions that remain are the responsibility
of
the author.
'f
Research Fellow
in
the Department of Political Economy at the University of Aberdeen.
39
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