The structural change in the United States economy represented by the growth of the service sector has received a great deal of discussion and analysis in recent years. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that have determined the growth of the separate service sectors (namely distributive, personal, social, and business) from 1960 to 1980 in the regional economy of California. The research addresses many issues. First, a general discussion is presented of the structural change in the United States economy toward a growing service sector. An obvious indicator of this change is the disproportionately higher rate of employment growth in the service industries as compared to the goods producing sectors. Second, it is pointed out that the current structural shift toward service affects the regional economy in shifting the labor force toward a service-oriented economy. Establishing the basic facts of this change, the research investigates the role of the four service industries in the region of California. This is carried out by analyzing the market and industrial factors thought to be the determinants of this growth and the causes of decentralization within the metropolitan areas in California. The empirical findings offer some answers to question of cause for employment changes in the service industries in the regional economy. The most important is that the growth of employment in the four service industries is not brought about by a single factor. Rather, growth is attributable to a combination of market and industrial variables, and the relative strength of the variables differs among the different service industries. The research also presents findings about the relationships among the service industries in terms of the employment changes in them. In general the research provides a contribution to future discussions of the service industries in the metropolitan labor market of the regional economy, and of the nature of regional occupational growth arising out of the structural change described.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-1525 |
| Date | 01 January 1987 |
| Creators | Adamu, Ayalew |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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