Change in occupational tasks and its implications: evidence from a task panel from 1973 to 2011 for Western Germany

Abstract

The change of tasks in occupations is of interest to economic and sociological research from three perspectives. The task-based technological change approach describes tasks as the link between capital input and labor demand. In human capital theory, tasks are used to distinguish between general and specific human capital. Moreover, in institutional economics or sociology, it is argued that the specificity of occupations influences the marketability of the corresponding skills and tasks. However, data sources that illustrate task change within occupations are rare. The objective of this paper is therefore to introduce a task panel, which is created based on 16 cross-sectional surveys from between 1973 and 2011 of the German microcensus (Labor-Force-Survey), as an additional source to monitor task change. I present and discuss the harmonization method for eleven main activities that are exercised by the incumbents of the occupation within 176 occupational groups. To demonstrate the research potential of this novel data source, I develop an alternative theoretical view on the task-technology framework and classify the harmonized tasks according to their relationship to technological inventions in the third industrial (micro-electronic) revolution (technologically replaceable, technology-accompanying, technology-complementary and technologically neutral). Matching the task panel to an already existing Occupational Panel (OccPan) for Western Germany from 1976 to 2010, I can use fixed-effect regressions to show that changes of tasks within occupations correspond with theoretical expectations regarding the median wage growth of an occupation. The task panel can be matched to any data set containing a German classification of occupations from 1975, 1988 or 1992 to investigate further effects of task change on individual labor market success.

Wage returns to job tasks and personality traits in Germany

“…In addition, labor market trends related to job tasks are already relatively well documented in Germany, which is also due to the good data availability (e.g. see Maier, 2022).…”

Does robotization affect job quality? Evidence from European regional labor markets

“…The work of Gihleb et al ( 2020 ), which is contemporaneous to ours also explores the effect on work intensity in Germany, without identifying any impact. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that their data and setup only allow them to explore between‐occupation change in the latter variable (while a large part of the variation in what workers do takes place within occupations) (Freeman et al, 2020 ; Maier, 2021 ). Our study is therefore the first to explore the impact of robots on different areas of working conditions and working conditions in general.…”

Does Robotization Affect Job Quality? Evidence from European Regional Labour Markets

“…the effect on work intensity in Germany, without identifying any impact. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that their data and set-up only allows them to explore between-occupation change in the latter variable (while a large part of the variation in what workers do takes place within occupations [Freeman et al, 2020;Maier, 2021]). Our study is therefore the first to explore the impact of robots on different areas of working conditions and working conditions in general.…”