Volume 6,
No.2
Summer 2000
Feature
Articles:
Work Life Estimates
Chicago's Place in the Metropolitan Area Economy
Book Review:
Socioeconomic Data for Understanding Your Regional
Economy: A User's Guide
Work Life Estimates
at Millennium's End: Changes over the Last Eighteen Years
By: James Ciecka, Thomas Donley,
and Jerry Goldman
Editor’s
Note: The following article is based upon data from the authors’ paper,
which will soon appear in the Journal of Legal Economics. For reprints
of this and the first article (based on 1992-93 data), contact the Illinois
Labor Market Review editor. Since the first article appeared in the
ILMR in 1996, we have received 30 requests for reprints, the majority
referred to us by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Four years ago we published an article in this journal which traced changes
in work life expectancies as published in Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
tables in 1986 compared to updated estimates contained in our paper of
1995*. The BLS tables were based upon 1979-80 data and our 1995 article
was based upon 1992-93 data primarily collected by the United States Bureau
of the Census, wherein we used the same mathematical model for labor force
participation. Knowledge of the structural changes which occurred in the
labor force over that thirteen-year period as reflected in the then new
tables seems to have been useful for the work of professionals in a wide
range of endeavors. Now we have developed 1999 work life expectancy tables,
again using the previous model, based upon labor market activity in 1997-98**.
In this article we cite some observations based upon this more current
data which we hope will at least equally serve the needs of professionals.
Men’s Work
Life Expectancies on the Rise Again
Over the eighteen years elapsed since the BLS data were gathered, certain
trends which seemed apparent five years ago have persisted, while others
have reversed. For example, as we reported in our previous article in
this review, work life expectancies increased for women over the 1980s,
yet had fallen for men. Post 1993, work life expectancies continue to
increase for females, but the decrease in male work life expectancies
in the 1980s has reversed. Table 1 summarizes
the work lives by gender over these periods in five year age increments
between the ages of 20 and 40.
Some of this change is surely
attributable to the length of the current economic expansion and tight
labor markets accompanying this sustained growth. In particular, as can
be seen from Table 1, the work life expectancy for
a 35 year old female increased from 17.6 years to 19.7 years between 1980
and 1993 and climbed further, to 20.9 years, in 1998. The implicit percentage
increase in work life expectancy for this group has accelerated from 0.87
percent to approximately 1.19 percent per annum***. Moreover, the turnaround
in length of work lives for men is large enough between 1993 and 1998
to overcome the decrease that occurred in the 1980s.
(*** This calculation is based on the 13-year span between
the 1980 BLS data and 1993 data from our first paper and the second span
of 5 years between 1993 and 1998.)
Gap Between Sexes Narrowed
Although work life expectancies increased for both sexes between 1993
and 1998, the gap between female and male work life expectancies narrowed
even further due to a proportionately greater increase in female working
years. Thus, while in 1993, female work lives were approximately 69 percent
to 74 percent as long as those of their male counterparts, by 1998 this
range had increased from 79 percent to 86 percent. While these data on
gender allow for some interesting observations, further analysis is possible.
Work life tables are organized for each age and gender into groups of
individuals who share common characteristics (cohorts), who are economically
active (in the labor force, but not necessarily employed) or inactive
(not in the labor force). Cohort membership may be further specified by
racial groups (White, Nonwhite, or African American) or level of education
(less than high school, high school diploma but no college degree, or
at least one college degree). Work life expectancy for an individual in
a cohort is the average number of years of activity remaining to him or
her.
How Work Life Tables Are
Used
The full 1999 tables provide data which lend insight into the effects
of a number of structural and societal factors upon the labor market.
To illustrate, Table 2 shows
that the expected number of working years for African American men diminished
over the five year data period since our last article, whereas the work
life expectancies of all nonwhite men increased in 1997-98, generally
in greater proportion to their 1992-93 data values than the increases
for white men. It has remained the case that expected work lives of African-
American men are usually less than for nonwhite men, which are less than
for all men, which are less than for white men.
As a final example we discuss
Table 3 , which provides expected
number of working years for women, stratified by education. Here we note
the continued increase in the length of working life relative to the BLS
figures for middle and high educational levels. At age 25, women with
at least one college degree had an expected work life (32.18, based upon
the latest data) 94 percent as long as white males of the same age, and
more than 96 percent as long as 25 year olds from the all-men category.
However, for the one education group of females that experienced a decline
in work life between the BLS study and our earlier work, women in the
lowest educational level, expected working lives sharply increased, to
the point where the 1999 figures now exceed the BLS figures.
The interest shown in our 1995 tables by such diverse groups as labor
economists, sociologists, attorneys, and statisticians has been very gratifying.
We hope these end of the century tables prove as useful to everyone interested
in labor markets.