TY  - JOUR
AU  - Margo,Robert A.
TI  - The Labor Force Participation of Older Americans in 1900: Further Results
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Historical Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 27
PY  - 1991
Y2  - July 1991
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/h0027
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/h0027.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert A. Margo
Department of Economics
Boston University
270 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
Tel: 617/353-6819
Fax: 617/343-8495
E-Mail: margora@bu.edu
AB  - Data from the public use sample of the 1900 census are used to study the proper labor force classification of older male Americans experiencing 6 months or more of unemployment in the previous year ("long-term unemployed"). In terms of their personal characteristics, the long-term unemployed were similar in many respects to persons with a gainful occupation. Because the probability of re-employment, conditional on unemployment, appears to have declined with age, the probability of experiencing long-term unemployment rose as persons aged. Census data are consistent with the view that the older an individual was upon entering the status of long-term unemployment, the greater the likelihood the person would leave the labor force in a short period of time. I conclude, however, that this is insufficient reason to exclude the long-term unemployed from the count of gainful workers in 1900, as has recently been advocated.
ER  -