英国留学生作业：英国职业结构

工业化是从一个前工业社会的发展：在这种情况下，一个国家经济生活为一个工业化经济或社会的标准是比较低的。这是一个社会经济和社会福利的转变的过程。“一个以农村为主的转变，农业和手工业社会进入一个以城市、工业和机械化的社会”。工业化的出现，是由于在生产规模，加大技术改造。第一个工业化国家在工业革命时期是英国，这是在十八和十九世纪之间。这是一个时期，经济的主要变化，如农业、制造业、交通运输和技术部门。自工业革命开始，从1760-1830年的产业，经济和社会得到改造，通过现代化和进步企业各方面的进步。这种进步鼓励所有的生产要素相结合的新方法。这些发展有助于从农业到工业控制的经济成熟。至于职业结构而言，在过去的十年中，第三阶段，即服务业，已经成为英国经济发展的重点，是超越制造业的第二阶段。现代的工作取代了旧的和现代的地区也扩大了，定期更换旧的工业区。“成长意味着改变，这是一个痛苦的过程。然而，有人认为，第三部门是制造业的一个子集。

 

Industrialisation is the development from a pre-industrial society: a situation in which the standard of living and economy of a state or society is relatively low, into an industrialised economy. This was a process of transformation in the economic and social wellbeing of the society. Musson and Robinson (1969) explained it as, "The transformation of a predominantly rural, agricultural and handicraft society into a predominantly urban, industrial and mechanised society" (Musson and Robinson, 1969, p60). Industrialisation came about, as a result of the technological improvements and increase in scale of production. The first country to industrialise was Great Britain during the industrial revolution and this was between the 18th and 19th century. This was a period in which there were main changes in the sectors of the economy, such as the agricultural, manufacturing, transport and technological sector. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, from 1760-1830 the industry, economy and society have been renovated, through the advancement in modernization and advancement in all aspects of human enterprise. This advancement encourages new methods of combining all the factors of production. These developments have assisted economic maturity from agricultural to industrial control. (Heathfield & Russell, 1992).And as far as the occupational structure is concerned, over the last decade, the tertiary stage i.e. the service sector, has become the major focus of economic advancement in Britain surpassing the secondary stage that is the manufacturing sector. Modern kind of jobs has replaced old ones and modern districts also expanded, regularly replacing old industrial districts. Heathfield and Russell (1992) stated that "Growth implies change, a painful process for some" (Heathfield & Russell, 1992, p19). However, it is believed that the tertiary sector is a subset of the manufacturing sector.

 

Therefore, this essay will focus on the impact of Industrialization on Occupational structure in Britain and its endurance on contemporary Britain. The first aspect of industrial revolution it will consider is the historical background, also the influence of technological advancement on the economy of Britain and the rate at which the occupational structure endured in contemporary Britain.

 

The conventional view of industrialization in Britain was that the procedure was seen to be theatrical and radical. This period i.e.18th and 19th century was when British innovators like Abraham Darby, Richard Arkwright, John Wilkinson, James watt, Samuel Crompton Thomas Newcomen and James watt among others. All these pioneers aided industrial revolution in Britain through their innovative minds. The pursuit for the foundation of industrialisation in Britain would be misplaced in the distant past. Should we presume it started alongside the fulling-mill in the thirteenth century or the gig-mill and blast furnace in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, or the water and wind-mill in more distant classical and medieval period? Different professors and researchers have given periods on when industrialisation started: some believed that there was an industrial revolution in the years 1540-1640. (Ashton, 1968) Professor Gordon Childe ascertained industrial revolution to have started during the Bronze Age. A classical industrial change happened in London at the urban brewing, before the seventeenth century the organisation of the industry was an individual affair, in which distinct families brewed their beer, but during the seventh century it changed into a commercial or business related structure in which beer was produced in large quantity about 10000 barrels a year in specialized manufacturing companies. But the irony of all is the fact that other industries such as flour-milling, glove-making and shoe making maintained their middle age form of production and organization until the advanced nineteenth century. Before the central change in the organisation of the economy, resources were dominant in the primary sector (Agricultural sector) i.e. resources were utilised in Agriculture. This fundamental change caused a movement of resources from the agricultural sector to the secondary sector (manufacturing sector) and ultimately tertiary sector (services) of the economy. This change caused a reduction in the output and labour force in agriculture and led to increased output and labour in the other sectors of the economy. The British economy progressed rapidly in 1850 when matched with 1750 and other prior centuries. The major hypothesis is that industrial manufacture began to increase and expand at a relatively great and unrelenting rate in terms of output. This change occurred as a result of several factors including: Technological advancements, Innovations and high level of production efficiency via trade and exchange demands which as caused a change in the employment or occupational structure in the UK.

 

The first area of the discussion is the aspect of Technology, The structure of wages and occupation has intensely moved in many countries in contemporary years. There have been changes in wages and employments in Britain because of the technological advancement unskilled workers suffer unemployment. The fact that the improvement in technology has affected the occupational structure adversely has been claimed by body of economists such as: (Bound and Johnson [1992]; Berman, Bound, and Griliches [1994] and Johnson [1997] the basis of the argument is that Technological changes have only favoured skilled workers whereby hurting the wages and employment of unskilled workers. Despite all these, the new technology enabled an increase in production (large scale production) both in the Agricultural and Manufacturing sector. Technological advancement emerged as a result of the incentives and innovations of entrepreneurs like Richard Arkwright, who constructed the textile-mill in cromford in 1771 (Ashton, 1968, p59). Also the assembly of water-powered (later steam powered) engines assisted in production efficiency of factories.

 

Many claim that mechanization was an emblem of evolution that unwrapped a modern economic epoch. The major critics behind the improvement of technology were the fact that machines were in charge of production and this caused workers to be in a submissive and docile situation, and these situation caused a chaos relative to workers job security and also intensification of work. This is a result of the fact that modern equipment and technological appliances were introduced and these lead to a reduced requirement or demand for workers in the manufacturing sector since equipment like computers were implemented, so these made workers more vulnerable to losing their place among the working class. Hence, this may cause intensification of work i.e. as a result of these layoffs; workers retained are made to do more work compared to what they would have done prior to the present technological inventions. (Ashton 1968)

 

The second area of discussion is the First and Second World War. Industrialisation was highly experienced during the First World War (1914-1918) and Second World War (1939-1945). The world war caused a greater increase in the efficiency of the manufacturing sector such as the aircraft industries, ammunition industries and other industries which were responsible for the provision of constituents needed for the war. There was relatively high intensification in the production of such products and services and these required more workers, prior to this period women were not allowed to work and if they would there was sexual segregation in the work place, a typical example is the of the assembly line of large motor parts, and there was a total separation between the male workers and female workers (Cavendish 1982). The work assigned to women was less skilled compared to that of the men, male workers did much skilled work like supervisors, engineers, mechanic repairs etc. but during the war, women were allowed to work, mainly cause of the intensification, efficiency and increase in production needed during the world war, female pilots were trained and recruited to fly aircrafts and these was done to help injured soldiers during the war, though all these were as a result of the war however, it increased production in the secondary sector(manufacturing sector) of the economy because there were high incentives in producing new equipment, most importantly in the chemical industries for the creation of nuclear bombs, other chemical ammunitions and apparatuses needed during the war. All these fostered a greater dominance of the manufacturing sector of the economy. The major argument about the dominance of the manufacturing sector in the economy is the fact that the primary sector (extracting) also plays a very vital role in the production of raw materials and other extractive resources which are utilized by the secondary sector, so the argument is that the manufacturing industry is influenced by the primary sector of the economy.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Foreign trade in the economy also was a major factor on the occupational structure. The rate of trade in the 18th century more importantly after 1780 increased rapidly because of the important role of importing raw materials and other inputs for certain industries. Cotton industry was a major industry that had to source her raw materials from foreign trade i.e. sourcing raw materials from other countries of the world. The cotton industry in Britain was heavily dependent on other countries for its inputs and a couple of decades after this importation, three-quarter of the country's outputs were exported to other countries and also the industry's consumption of raw materials or inputs reduced, which implies that growth was dependent on exports of the production. Therefore, foreign trade has played a vital role in the economic growth of industries in Britain. The impact of these on the occupational structure is that foreign trade fostered large economies of scale, whereby increasing the number of workers involved in the manufacturing sector of the economy and this has obviously caused the manufacturing company to have a greater percentage and dominance in the economy.

 

In contemporary Britain, the occupational structure has shifted from the manufacturing sector to the tertiary or services sector. Between 1971-1995, the number of employees(working population) in the manufacturing or secondary sector fell by 4million workers these was as a result of factors such as labour saving machinery which were provided in substitute of human labour in production, movement of manufacturing locations overseas i.e. foreign production or foreign direct investment as the case may be. This shift is also as a result of the claim that contemporary Britain has moved from an industrial economy to a post-industrial economy (Bell 1973): an economy that is knowledge based. As a result, the service sector has been a very dominant sector in contemporary Britain. The service sector which depicts the knowledge based economy is capitalised on the skills and knowledge acquired by workers and these has been at the expense of other factors of production (land and capital). According to Barney"...future prosperity is likely to hinge on the use of scientific and technical knowledge, the management of information and the provision of services..." (Barney 1996). So it is assumed that the workforce in the present or contemporary economy of Britain is highly-skilled and well educated with degrees and also it is backed with better pay, superior independence, better terms and conditions of employment, inspiring and gratifying work and there is proliferation in job indulgence. Major examples of services or professionally knowledge-based occupations that are widespread in contemporary Britain are: lawyers, accountants, managers, doctors, marketing and advertising executives, scientists, engineers, doctors, ICT specialists and all the employees who support these occupations (Albert and Bradley 1997).

 

However, it has been argued that even though the services sector (knowledge-based) fosters up- skilling of the economy; the classification of the work population in the sector was based on the job and not the content. For example, a manual worker or temporary workers in the tertiary sector; even though the worker is rendering a service, it is obviously neither a skilled nor a knowledge-based service been rendered. So it is argued that the classification of the service sector which is dominant in contemporary Britain should be based on the content of the job and not just the nominal job. The rise of the service sector and the decline of the manufacturing sector are associated with a technological drive exemplified by the end of the machine age and the emergence of an information age (Hamel and prahalad 1996). This rise in the service sector or a knowledge-based economy which was said to denote a post-industrial phenomenon has been argued not to be one, but rather an essential part of industrial capitalist improvement. So the service and knowledge-based sector is seen as advancement in the industrial sector, Industrialisation in Britain therefore has played a very vital role in the British occupational structure. A very fundamental argument about the services or knowledge-based sector is that, there will be extreme fatalities on workers in organisations who can't add value to the subsisting value of the organisation. For example, been aware of the fact that the service or knowledge-based sector is based on your skills and knowledge and your educational status which is not always the case, like the instance earlier given about manual worker who is rendering a service but doesn't necessarily have to be skilled before such services can be rendered. The knowledge-based sector can cause problems for workers without proper and adequate skills to add significant value to the organisation. So these sector favours the highly skilled at the expense of the less-skilled workers. "The upward shift in the occupational structure did indeed reflect the expansion of highly skilled jobs, even when a different range of indicators of skills were used" (Gallie 1991:349). The pre-dominance of the service sector is major influence of the balance of payment deficit on goods and a surplus on services, which is been experienced presently in contemporary Britain.

 

Industrialisation in Britain has been notified as an economic and social change rather than a shoot to a contemporary epoch. In other words, industrialisation has been said by many economists such as Robert Southey (1774-1843) and Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) to have brought a negative impact on the occupational structure and the economy as a whole. Some of such impacts are the introduction of machinery: it was argued that the introduction of machinery caused lay-offs of workers from their jobs because they claimed machines served as substitute to workers. However, in reality those machines cannot function without workers to operate them. So the opposing claim is that, the introduction of machines and other technological advancement by innovators such as Arkwright and Wedgewood was to increase production and improve their economies of scale (produce more at a lower cost of production). It was also argued that Industrialisation caused a problem based on social and cultural factors, Britain during industrialisation imbibed an anti-business culture which as caused a decline in Britain over the past 120years, because other populated states such as the United States and Germany industrialised. The existence of the rival industrial centres implied that Britain could not enjoy its initial monopoly and superiority enjoyed by her in manufacturing and exporting of industrial goods as the only industrialised nation. (Rubinstein 1993)

 

In conclusion, Industrialisation has generally caused a great impact in the occupational structure right from the primary sector (mainly Agricultural) to the secondary sector (Manufacturing) and the tertiary sector (services). In this essay have been able to talk majorly on those impacts explaining the factors implementing the impacts such as the Invention of machines and other technological advancements which is majorly for the purpose of having large economies of scale, also the influence of the world wars(first and second) on the occupational structure, this factor really impacted the occupational structure mainly the manufacturing sector, because it improved efficiency of production especially war ammunitions, aircrafts etc. Also the extent of these occupational structures on contemporary Britain; and the predominant occupational structure in present Britain is the service (knowledge-based) sector which is denoted as a post-industrial economy, this sector is based on individual skills and knowledge. My own view concerning impact of industrialisation on occupational structure is that even though it has had very positive impacts on these structures; it has caused serious and major economic problems on the long run such as: balance of payment deficits, inflation rates been really high over the years and above all recessions.