Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/150909 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research No. 364
Publisher: 
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin
Abstract: 
Different empirical studies suggest that the structure of employment in the U.S. and Great Britain tends to polarise into "good" and "bad" jobs. We provide updated evidence that polarisation also occurred in Germany since the mid-1980s until 2008. Using representative panel data, we show that this trend corresponds to a task bias in employment changes: routine jobs have lost relative employment, especially in predominantly manual occupations. We further provide the first direct test for whether task-biased technological change affects employment and remuneration in the same direction and conclude that there is no consistent task bias in the evolution of pay rules. By contrast, compositional changes like the proportion of union members are clearly associated with long-term changes in the remuneration of occupations.
Subjects: 
Polarisation
technological change
pay rules
occupations
inequality
tasks
JEL: 
J21
J24
J31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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