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Characteristics of Post-Industrial Society--Sectoral Transformation:

• the decline of industrial production and the rise of the service economy
  
  
• industrial production is relocated abroad (Mexico, Central America, China, Southeast Asia, etc.)
  
  
• in 1970 26% of employed U.S. workers worked in manufacturing industries; by 1997 this rate had decreased to 16%
  
  
• the rise of the service economy includes low-skill jobs but especially high-skill service jobs; low-skill jobs are found in domestic and personal service and high-skill jobs are found in businesses providing services, e.g., management, health care, computer services, etc.
  
  
• in 1970, 26% of employed U.S. workers worked in service occupations; by 1997 this rate had increased to 36%
  
  
• the largest job growth between 1996 and 2006 is predicted to be for cashiers and systems analysts (3.7 mil cashiers and 1.0 mil system analysts in 2006)
  
  
• between 1970 and 1997 the number of social workers and legal services workers more than triples
  
  

Other characteristics of Post-Industrial Society:

• decline of unions
  
  
• between 1983 and 1997 the percent of U.S. workers in the private sector who belong to unions drops from 20% to 14% (while the union membership of public service workers increases slightly to 37%)
  
  
• the number of work stoppages drops dramatically, from an annual average of 289 work stoppages in the 1970s to 33 per year in the 1990s.
  
  
  

Does the Post-Industrial Society Represent a Post Political Age?

• the decline of class conflict with the decline of the industrial labor force
  
  
  

Global-system context of Post-Industrial Society:

U.S. firms export goods and services abroad--from $344 billion in 1980 to $1.2 trillion in 1997

• top purchasers of U.S. exports: Canada, Mexico, and Japan
  
  
• top exporters to the United States: Canada, Japan, and Mexico
  
  
• a global class structure enables the exportation of jobs to low-wage countries abroad (what is a class structure?)
  
  
• 4,000 maquiladoras in Mexico concentrated on the U.S.-Mexico border (owners include BMW, Chrysler, Sony, Xerox, General Motors, General Electric, AT&T, Ford, Toshiba, etc.)
  
  
• maquiladoras employ about 1 million Mexican workers (especially young women); make workers make less than $10 a day
  
  
• Increasingly employers in Post-Industrial societies seek the use of foreign workers
  
  
  • the number of temporary workers and trainees admitted into the United States increased from 75 thousand in 1985 to 227 thousand in 1996
    
    

In the context of the global economic system, Post-Industrial societies are significantly affecting the world order, altering the historical functions of the nation-state as a basic unit of global regional organization