Working Paper Series,
Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: A large and growing empirical literature has presented evidence of job polarization, i.e. the simultaneous growth of high-wage jobs and low-wage jobs at the expense of middle-wage jobs. Thus far, the focus has been on employment in different occupations, without taking into account the role of firms in the labor demand process. The purpose of this paper is to bridge this knowledge gap by explicitly analyzing how firms influence the current process of job polarization. Using detailed Swedish matched employer-employee data for the 1997–2013 period, we present novel evidence on within-firm job polarization. Applying a decomposition framework, we also find that both within-firm and between-firm components are important for overall job polarization. We also show how the within-firm pattern is related to explanations for job polarization that have been proposed, i.e. the influence of routine-based technological change and the offshorability and automation of jobs. The results indicate that routineness of jobs seems to be the most important factor behind the observed pattern of within-firm job polarization.

Keywords: Keywords: Job polarization; Job tasks; Routinization; Automation; Matched employer-employee data

JEL-codes: J24; J31; O33

12 pages, May 16, 2016

Full text files

wp1123.pdf  

Download statistics

• Research Institute of Industrial Economics
• Ordering Working Papers
• Home page for this series

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Elisabeth Gustafsson ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1123This page generated on 2024-09-13 22:15:50.