Routine-biased technical change and job polarization in Europe

Fernández‐Macías, Enrique; Hurley, John

doi:10.1093/ser/mww016

Cited by 65 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Our main empirical findings indicate that the growing share of refugees, as well as immigration more generally, has only had a limited general impact on the growth of the low-wage sector in the EU during the past two decades. The main drivers behind increasing labour market polarization and growth of the low-wage sector in particular seem to be more related to technological changes, institutions and globalization (Fernandez-Macıas & Hurley, 2017;Goos et al, 2009). Our findings are thus largely in line with Autor and Dorn (2013) study on the US, showing that growing low-skilled migration had much less impact than the aforementioned factors on the expansion of lowskilled occupations.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…By assessing the impact of refugees along with other forms of immigration on low-wage jobs, we relate our analysis to current discussions on job polarization. While the main argument is related to technological changes, globalization and inequality, much less interest has been paid to the potential immigrant-induced change in skill composition in the EU context (Fernandez-Macıas & Hurley, 2017;Goos, Manning, & Salomons, 2009). For the US, a study by Autor and Dorn (2013) shows that growing low-skilled migration had a much weaker impact than technological factors did on the expansion of low-skilled occupations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Refugee immigration and the growth of low-wage work in the EU15

Andersson

Eriksson

Scocco³

2019

CMS

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Our paper focuses on current trends in refugee migration and job polarization. In so doing, we assess the role of refugee migration in relation to institutional, technologicalty 1 and globalization factors in an effort to trace the factors underlying the growth of low-paying occupations in EU 15 between 1995 and 2017. Our empirical findings suggest that refugee migration has a small but positive and statistically significant impact on the growth of low-wage occupations in the EU 15 as a whole. However, the effect is attributed to Southern Europe and the UK and Irish economies. Despite hosting relatively large numbers of refugee migrants, the effects in the Nordic countries and Continental Europe are negligible, if present, and non-existent in the long run (5 years). When including all migrant workers, we find a limited impact on the growth of low-wage work in general, while the impact of immigrant workers from low-income third party countries becomes positive for the UK and Irish economy, but less for other European macro-regions. This suggests that institutional settings can play an important role in how the economy adjusts to migration. It also suggests that traditional fiscal cost calculations in relation to migration are often overestimated, as they implicitly build on the assumption that refugees and general immigration have great impacts on the growth of low-wage occupations.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refugee immigration and the growth of low-wage work in the EU15

Andersson

Eriksson

Scocco³

2019

CMS

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“…There are two hypotheses in the literature (Acemoglu and Autor, ; Fernandez‐Macias and Hurley, ; Goos et al., ) to explain the nature of technological change: skill‐biased technological change (SBTC), and routine‐biased technological change (RBTC) . According to the SBTC hypothesis, technology complements high‐skill jobs more than low‐skill jobs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For vivid descriptions of skill‐biased technological change and routine‐biased technological change, see Acemoglu and Autor () and Fernandez‐Macias and Hurley ().…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Employment Change in Occupations in Urban India: Implications for Wage Inequality

Sarkar¹

2018

Development and Change

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This article analyses employment and wage change patterns in India for a period spanning almost three decades, from 1983–84 to 2011–12. Using data from the National Sample Survey Organization, the study finds evidence of job polarization (employment growth in low‐ and high‐skill jobs and decline in middle‐skill jobs) in urban India during the 1990s and 2000s, and employment upgrading in the 1980s. Consistent with the literature on job polarization, the article finds a reduction in employment share in routine task intensive occupations. The author argues that this reduction is a result of both mechanization and technological upgrading within Indian industry. On the other hand, an increase in employment share in both low‐skill and high‐skill occupations is argued to be a result of growing self‐employment and informal sector employment in urban India. The wage change patterns are largely consistent with the employment change patterns. The analysis suggests that structural change in occupation is an important factor for understanding earnings inequality in India.

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“…According to the TBTC hypothesis, while machine can replace the methodical jobs, the non-routine jobs located in very bottom and top of the occupational hierarchy cannot be substituted by technology. For a vivid discussion on SBTC and TBTC please refer to Fernandez-Macias and Hurley (2016) for further reading. 2 Literature of polarization and technological change has interchangeably used the terms low-skill, lowpaid or bad jobs and high-skill, high-paid or good jobs while explaining the structural change across the job or occupational hierarchy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Employment polarization and over-education in Germany, Spain, Sweden and UK

Sarkar

2017

Empirica

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The objective of this study is twofold. First, it investigates the association between technological change and over-education by analysing incidence of overeducation and its change across skill-based and task-based job categories. Second, it compares countries with different employment change pattern-mainly upgrading and polarizing-to establish a link between employment polarization and overeducation. Using data from European Labour Force Survey covering the period from 1999 to 2007, the paper analyses four countries of Europe-Germany, Spain, Sweden and UK. The results suggest higher incidence of over-education in polarized countries-Spain and UK as compared to countries with a somewhat upgrading pattern of employment change-Germany and Sweden. It also reveals that in Spain and UK, over-education is prominent and increasing over time in the low-skill jobs which are mostly non-routine manual in nature, while Germany and Sweden have more over-educated workers in middle skilled routine and high skilled analytical jobs. I find similar results in both descriptive and job fixed effects regressions.

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Routine-biased technical change and job polarization in Europe

Cited by 65 publications

References 23 publications

Refugee immigration and the growth of low-wage work in the EU15

Refugee immigration and the growth of low-wage work in the EU15

Employment Change in Occupations in Urban India: Implications for Wage Inequality

Employment polarization and over-education in Germany, Spain, Sweden and UK

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