Computers as Stepping Stones? Technological Change and Equality of Labor Market Opportunities

Can workers still climb the social ladder as middling jobs become scarce? Evidence from two British cohorts

“…Also related are Arntz et al (2022) and Berger and Engzell (2022). The approach in Berger and Engzell ( 2022) is close to that in Guo (2022) and Hennig (2022).…”

“…Surprisingly, the question of whether employment polarization affects mobility has been largely ignored. To our knowledge, the only exceptions are Guo (2022), Hennig (2022), Arntz et al (2022) and Berger and Engzell (2022). Guo (2022) and Hennig (2022) share a focus on educational decisions and how the disappearance of routine jobs affects the incentives to invest in education, which in turn results in a polarization of education and of wages, as well as in lower inter-generational mobility.…”

“…Using the same US data for commuting-zone income mobility, they find a negative correlation between the local use of robots and the extent of inter-generational income mobility. Arntz et al (2022) focus on the wages of individuals with different parental backgrounds and how they are affected by technology. Their evidence for Germany indicates that, for individuals with higher education, an increase in the use of computer-controlled tools is associated with a smaller wage gap between those with high-income and low-income parents.…”