Most analyses linking task content of jobs to income inequality focus on the effects between occupations, e.g. the growing dispersion between lousy and lovely jobs. Theory, meanwhile, provides insights on links between task content of jobs and inequality also within occupations: models predict compression of wages in more routine jobs, that is those where capital is a direct substitute for labor, and an increase in dispersion in jobs where capital and labor are complements. I document that within occupations dispersion of wages is empirically relevant, as it represents around half of total wage inequality across Europe. I then link wage inequality to the task content of jobs. Using matched employee-employer data from Europe for the period 2002-2014, I show that occupations where tasks complement newer technologies exhibit higher wage dispersion. This relationship is robust to adjusting for a variety of confounding and mitigating channels.
Replication files
Unpublished version
Published version
Task content of jobs and inequality
In this research project, we focus on how new technologies affected wage inequality within-occupations. By doing so, we contribute to the literature on skill-biased technological change in two ways: first, we incorporate a dynamic dimension to the analysis by including measures on the scope and pace of changes in task content. Second, we shift our interest from differences across occupations to inequality within occupations.
Both changes are relevant from a policy perspective. Analyzing dynamics help us to understand how occupations evovle, and how workers cope with those changes. Focusing on inequality within occupations, we can understand better who were the winners and losers from the adoption of new technologies, and possibly consider what policy instruments could ameliorate the negative consequences of technological progress.
We test two hypothesis:
Changes in the task composition towards more complex tasks were followed by increases in relative wages.
Occupations that experienced larger changes in their tasks contents present higher wage inequalities.
We analyze inequality within jobs, and its relation to technological change. New technologies are constantly transforming the production process. They create opportunities to perform new jobs and tasks, while simultaneously rendering other tasks obsolete. We look into details of these processes.
Objectives | Cel badania
In English We analyze the consequences of changes in the task content of jobs on wages \emph{within} occupations. In this project, we formulate two hypotheses: (1) occupations where the share of more complex (defined as nonroutine cognitive) tasks increased, experienced a larger increase in wages; (2) within occupation wage inequalities are larger in those occupations that experienced more changes in the task content.
Po polsku Zbadamy i przeanalizujemy jak zmiany w zakresie zadań wykonywanych przez pracowników oddziałują na płace
Method | Metodyka
In English We work with microeconomic data sources that allow to recover workers' occupations and earnings. Additionally, we will employ the DOT and O*NET databases, to recover the task content of occupations. Using these databases, we perform the following tasks.
- Provide a descriptive analysis of changes in the demand for skills in the context of transition and developed countries
- Identify the occupations that changed the most over the period and the direction of these changes. We will extend the existing analysis by developing a synthetic measure of the size and scope of these changes.
- Correlate the changes in the task composition of occupations to changes in relative wages.
Po polsku Projekt ma charakter empiryczny. Wykorzystane zostaną dane mikroekonomiczne w calu pozyskania informacji o zawodach i płacach. Dodatkowo, korzystać będziemy z baz DOT and O*NET, które zawierają informacje o zadaniach wykonywanych w ramach zawodów. Na podstawie baz danych:
- przygotowana zostanie analiza deskryptywna zmian w popycie na umiejętności w krajach transformacyjnych oraz rozwiniętych.
- zidentyfikowane zostaną zawody, w których zmiany w zakresie zadań były największe oraz kierunki tych zmian.
- połączone zostaną zmiany w zakresie zadań w zawodzie ze zmianami w relatywnych płacach.
Intended contribution | Planowane efekty
In English Our project builds on the existing literature in two dimenstions. First, we focus on the dynamic aspect of technological change. The development of an index of change is an important part of this task and a valuable sub-product of our research that can be used to explore connected topics. Second, our analysis will focus on wage inequality within occupation, a phenomenon that was mostly disregarded in the existing literature.
Understanding more on the sources of wage inequality (worker or firm heterogeneity) could inform on where the main bottlenecks are and how they can be addressed. Moreover, it can inform on which workers experienced/will experience more distress, and inform on how to target them better.
Po polsku Nasz projekt przyczyni się do rozwoju literatury w dwóch aspektach. Po pierwsze, wypełniona zostanie luka dotycząca dynamicznego aspektu zmian technologicznych do tej pory pomijanego w badaniach. Stworzony zostanie wskaźnik zmian, który będzie mógł być wykorzystywany przez badaczy do dalszych prac nad poruszanym tematem. Po drugie, nasza analiza koncentruje się na nierównościach dochodowych wewnątrz grup zawodowych - kolejny temat dotychczas niepojawiający się szerzej w literaturze.
Większe zrozumienie źródeł nierówności dochodowych może pomóc wskazać, gdzie znajdują się największe problemy i jak z nimi walczyć. Co więcej, również pracownicy i pracodawcy bardziej świadomi z czego wynika ich pozycja na rynku i w rozkładzie płac, mogą wykorzystać tę wiedzę na swoją korzyść.
@article{van2020within,
title={Within occupation wage dispersion and the task content of jobs},
author={Van der Velde, Lucas},
journal={Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics},
volume={82},
number={5},
pages={1161--1197},
year={2020},
publisher={Wiley Online Library}
}