Pre-war and post-war trends in manpower of European countries

Abstract

Manpower developments should be examined against the population background. Population and manpower structure of post-war Europe is the haphazard result of various trends, war losses and tremendous shifts of population. Conditions have been changing rapidly, so that computations regarding the structural changes of populations prior to 1949 are in many cases not significant.

The major pre-war trends in economic structure appear to have continued after the war with the exception of commerce, which has not maintained its previous upward trend.

The present disturbed situation is not a convenient platform for projections of population or of manpower. Anyhow, any speculation as to future developments should be based on the knowledge of the specific conditions obtaining in the various countries. Differences in the economic and social structure, as well as in legislation between the various parts of Europe, no longer warrant a smooth and uniform development in accordance with the pre-war pattern. There are, on the other hand, some features of a prospective rapprochement in the economic and social field between Western and Eastern Europe.

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Notes on contributors

Grzegorz Frumkin

Thanks are due to M. Jacques Grot who has kindly checked and corrected some sections of the present paper.