Computers and The Increase of Labor and Wage Inequality in The 1980’s :: History Technology Essays

Computers and The Increase of Labor and Wage Inequality in The 1980s Although computer engineering science dates back to at least the 1940s, microprocessors were first introduced on a wide scale in manufacturing in the 1970s. It has been noted that mainframe computers started to be substance abused in business in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Computers provoke seemed to grow more rapidly ever since the Apple II was born in 1977 and the IBM PC in 1981. PC (personal computers) spread rapidly in the 80s and 90s and have been upgrading ever since. It has been said that during this increase in popularity and use of computers the labor inequality and wage difference has been increasing as well. Throughout this paper we will discuss reasons why computers are to blame and why computers have had nothing to do with economic increase of skilled educated hunters and a decrease in need for untutored and uneducated workers. Increase in the harvest-time rate of the demand of more skilled wo rkers due to the pace of the technological work from 1970 to the present has been one of the arguments against computers causing inequality. From the 1970s the pace of work has been faster, the work load has been greater because demand has gone up, and many jobs have become more difficult to learn. There are no longer mills where upbringing and much knowledge was needed to get the job done. Work has gotten much more involved and complex. The employment of high school drop outs have go from 64.4% in 1940 to 9.8% in 1996, and the employment of college graduates have risen from 9.3% to 41.6%. Although computers have been around that whole time there is no way they caused a 54.6% decrease in the employment of high school drop outs. It has withal been said that there has been an expansion slowdown from what the country was used to in the beginning half of this degree centigrade from the 1970s, so this has allowed companies to pay one educated worker rather than paying two of three un educated workers that did the same job. Over the years unions have also began to disappear causing some of those unskilled workers how were once protected by contracts to a given union to become no longer demanded. Many of those unskilled workers who escaped being unneeded have noticed a dramatic pay decrease. Many people might think, What are you talking about, in the 1940s they were making like five to ten dollars a day.