Do Tech Jobs Support Cities as Manufacturing Did?:Comparison between 1970 and 2014 in the United States

• In Event: 413 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Refereed Roundtable Session. Table 01. Culture and Organizations
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 17. Occupations and Professions

Abstract

This paper aims to compare whether technology jobs in 2014 support local economies in the same way as manufacturing jobs did in 1970. While technology jobs are considered the new engine of growth in local economies, what sort of occupations in cities has been benefitted by the rise of technology jobs is not examined. Based on Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data about the percentage of workers in occupation categories by cities, I define the relationship of two occupations as consistent geographical coincidences. Then, I use two analyses to see the occupation relational structure for each 1970 and 2014 period: occupation-based and city-based analysis. For the first analysis, I calculate correlations of occupations by using occupation rank in cities. Then, I conduct a principal component analysis with occupation proportions by cities to see the similarity of cities depending on which occupations they have. According to the result, I find that tech jobs closely relate to more professionals such as managers, researchers, lawyers, media, and art occupations than other service occupations including food serving or building cleaning workers while manufacturing jobs relate within themselves. Particularly, the frequent geographical overlaps between technology and managerial workers in 2014 data suggest the close relationship between business and computerized occupations. This approach expanding the perspective to see the relationship of occupations has a meaning in that it explains more about how concentrated wealth and opportunity are likely to be following the rise of innovation sector.

Author

• Lanu Kim, University of Washington