Labor Force
Although labor-force concepts were originally designed to study economic activity and guide government policies, economic activities are a form of social behavior with numerous social determinants and consequences. Hence labor-force behavior has been the subject of a substantial body of sociological research.
Measurement
The U.S. Bureau of the Census developed the labor-force concept to measure the number of working-age people who were economically active during a particular time period—the calendar week preceding the sample interview (Cain 1979; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 1982). It has two components: (1) The employed: those who, during the reference week, did any work at all as paid employees, were self-employed, or worked as unpaid family workers at least fifteen hours in a family-operated enterprise; included also are those who were employed but on vacation, home sick, etc. (2) The unemployed: those who were not employed during the reference week but who were available for work and had actively sought employment sometime within the preceding four-week period. All those who are neither employed nor unemployed are defined as being out of the labor force and primarily include students, housewives, the retired, and the disabled. Since the size of the population affects the number of people who work, labor-force measures are usually expressed in ratio form.
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