The Transformation of the American Class Structure, 1960-1980

This study explores a series of predictions concerning the likely changes in the American class structure in the 1970s made by Wright and Singelmann in their work on proletarianization. They argued that, in a period of economic stagnation such as occurred in the 1970s, there should be an acceleration of the process of proletarianization and a decline in the expansion of managerial and semiautonomous employee (or expert) locations in the class structure. These changes should occur both because of an intensification of proletarianization within economic sectors and because of decline in the shift of employment into the relatively less proletarianized sectors such as the state. On the basis of the data used in this study, none of these predictions is supported. Indeed, the evidence indicates a decisive acceleration of the growth of managerial class locations in the 1970s and a clear deproletarianization within and across economic sectors. These findings are interpreted as a result of two principal factors: the internationalization of American class relations during the 1970s and the effect of technological and organizational changes in production on clases in the United States.