🚜 Fewer farm workers
Mechanisation of farming means tractors and harvesters do the work of many people. Fewer farm workers are needed, so people look for jobs in factories and towns.
Changing Employment Structures » How Employment Structures Change
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Cambridge spec: 9.1.2
- How the employment structure differs in LICs, MICs and HICs
- Why employment moves from primary to secondary to tertiary industry
- The Clark-Fisher model and its limitations
- How to read employment data for different countries and dates
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Unlock This CourseEmployment structures are always changing
In the last lesson you met the four types of industry and the idea of an employment structure: the share of a country's workers in each type. This lesson asks a bigger question. Why do these shares change as a country gets richer? Geographers compare three groups of countries: low-income countries (LICs), middle-income countries (MICs) and high-income countries (HICs).
Key terms:
- Industrialisation: the growth of manufacturing (secondary industry) in a country's economy.
- Deindustrialisation: the decline of manufacturing, so fewer workers have factory jobs.
- Clark-Fisher model: a model that shows employment moving from primary to secondary to tertiary industry as a country develops.
LICs, MICs and HICs compared
| Country group | Main sector | What is happening |
|---|---|---|
| LICs | Primary (mostly farming) | Most people grow food. Secondary and tertiary jobs are few, mostly in towns. |
| MICs | Secondary and tertiary growing | Factories and services grow quickly. Primary falls as people leave the land. |
| HICs | Tertiary (mostly) | Services dominate. Secondary is falling and quaternary is growing. |
So as a country moves from LIC to MIC to HIC, the main type of work moves along the chain: primary, then secondary, then tertiary, with quaternary growing.
Why does employment change?
🏭 Industrialisation
As a country builds factories, secondary jobs grow. Wages in factories are often higher than on farms, which pulls workers away from primary industry.
💰 Rising incomes
When people earn more, they spend more on services such as restaurants, healthcare, education, travel and entertainment. More demand for services means more tertiary jobs.
💻 Technology
Robots and computers do many factory tasks, so factories need fewer people. New technology also creates jobs in IT, research and design, which are quaternary.
Deindustrialisation and globalisation
In many HICs, secondary employment has fallen. This is deindustrialisation. Two causes matter most:
- Globalisation: many companies moved their manufacturing to countries in Asia, where wages and costs are lower. The factory jobs left the HIC.
- Technology: machines in the remaining factories replaced workers.
The same moves explain industrialisation in the countries that gained the factories. Many MICs in Asia have seen secondary employment grow quickly because manufacturing moved there. How globalisation works is taught in later lessons.
The Clark-Fisher model
The Clark-Fisher model is a simple way to show these changes over time. It is usually drawn as a graph with time along the bottom and the percentage of workers up the side, with one line for each sector.
- Early stage: most workers are in primary industry. Secondary and tertiary are small.
- Middle stage: primary falls steeply. Secondary rises, then reaches a peak.
- Later stage: secondary falls back. Tertiary keeps rising and becomes the largest sector.
The model is useful because it gives a clear pattern that many countries follow, and it lets you describe any country by its stage.
Limitations of the Clark-Fisher model
1. It is simple. Real countries do not all follow the same smooth path or speed. 2. Some countries rely on one resource (such as oil) or on tourism, so they may skip the secondary peak. 3. It does not show why the changes happen, or the role of globalisation and government decisions. 4. It uses the three sectors only, so quaternary is hidden inside tertiary. 5. It does not show unemployment or the informal economy, where many LIC workers have unrecorded jobs.
Reading employment data
When you read a table of employment data, check that the shares add up to 100, then look at the biggest and smallest figures and how each one changes. Use percentage points for the change in a share. For example, "from 60% to 10%" is a fall of 50 percentage points.
Worked example
Made-up data for Country M (percentage of workers):
| Year | Primary | Secondary | Tertiary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 60 | 20 | 20 |
| 2000 | 35 | 35 | 30 |
| 2020 | 10 | 30 | 60 |
Each row adds up to 100. Primary fell by 50 percentage points (60 to 10). Tertiary rose by 40 percentage points (20 to 60). Secondary rose to a peak of 35% in 2000 and then fell to 30%. So in 1980 Country M looks like an LIC, in 2000 like an MIC, and by 2020 like an HIC. This matches the Clark-Fisher model.
Compare this with made-up Country H, an HIC. In 1960 it had 10% primary, 45% secondary and 45% tertiary. By 2020 it had 2% primary, 18% secondary and 80% tertiary. Its secondary share fell by 27 percentage points. This is deindustrialisation.
Common mistakes
1. Writing that tertiary jobs "replace" primary jobs one for one. Different people take the new jobs, and the total number of workers can change. 2. Saying that HICs have no secondary industry. They still have manufacturing, but a smaller share. 3. Giving only one reason. Good answers name several linked causes, such as mechanisation, then industrialisation, then rising incomes. 4. Forgetting units: say "percentage points" for changes in a share.
Exam-style question
Fig. 1.1 shows made-up data for the employment structure of Country N.
| Year | Primary (%) | Secondary (%) | Tertiary (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 55 | 15 | 30 |
| 2020 | 20 | 30 | 50 |
(a) Calculate the change in the percentage of workers in primary industry between 1990 and 2020. [1 mark]
(b) Identify the sector whose share rose by the most percentage points between 1990 and 2020. [1 mark]
(c) Suggest two reasons why the share of workers in primary industry fell. [2 marks]
(d) Assess how useful the Clark-Fisher model is for showing changes in employment structure. [6 marks]
Model answer
(a) A fall of 35 percentage points (55 - 20) (1).
(b) Tertiary (it grew by 20 percentage points, compared with 15 for secondary) (1).
(c) Any two from: mechanisation of farming means fewer workers are needed (1); people move to better paid jobs in factories and towns (1); industrialisation or rising incomes create secondary and tertiary jobs (1).
(d) A top-level answer (5-6 marks) gives strengths, limitations and a judgement. Example: The model is useful because it shows a clear pattern over time, from mostly primary to mostly tertiary (1). Country N follows it, as primary fell from 55% to 20% and tertiary rose from 30% to 50% (1). It helps to describe the stage a country has reached, such as an MIC with growing secondary and tertiary (1). However, it is simple and real countries do not all follow the same path (1). Some countries rely on oil or tourism and may skip the secondary peak (1). It also does not explain why the changes happen, such as globalisation moving factories to Asia (1). Overall it is useful as a starting point, but it needs other information to explain real countries (1, judgement).
Exam tip
For "Assess" questions, always finish with a short judgement: say how useful the model is overall and why, not just a list of points.