Employment polarization: evidence from regions in Greece

Roupakias, Stelios (2023): Employment polarization: evidence from regions in Greece.

Abstract

This study first provides evidence compatible with the idea of employment polarization in the Greek labour market since the early 1990s. Then, using an instrumental variables approach, it uncovers the potential role of routine biased technological change in explaining these developments in the employment structure. The empirical results consistently suggest that employment has polarized more into regions with a higher initial routine share. Overall, the impact of technology on the employment rate is negligible, implying that the expansion of non-routine manual employment fully compensates for the destruction of jobs in middling, routine occupations.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Polarization, Labour Market, Employment
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J0 - General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor

References

Acemoglu, D., & Autor, D. (2011). Skills, tasks and technologies: Implications for employment and earnings. In Handbook of labor economics (Vol. 4, pp. 1043-1171). Elsevier.

Autor, D. H., Levy, F., & Murnane, R. J. (2003). The skill content of recent technological change: An empirical exploration. The Quarterly journal of economics, 118(4), 1279-1333.

Autor, D. H., & Dorn, D. (2013). The growth of low-skill service jobs and the polarization of the US labor market. American economic review, 103(5), 1553-1597.

Brunetti, I., Intraligi, V., Ricci, A., & Cirillo, V. (2020). Low‐skill jobs and routine tasks specialization: New insights from Italian provinces. Papers in regional Science, 99(6), 1561-1581.

Consoli, D., & Sánchez‐Barrioluengo, M. (2019). Polarization and the growth of low‐skill service jobs in Spanish local labor markets. Journal of Regional Science, 59(1), 145-162.

Drinkwater, S. (2021). Brexit and the ‘left behind’: Job polarization and the rise in support for leaving the European Union. Industrial Relations Journal, 52(6), 569-588.

García-Peñalosa, C., Petit, F., & Van Ypersele, T. (2023). Can workers still climb the social ladder as middling jobs become scarce? Evidence from two British cohorts. Labour Economics, 102390.

Goos, M., & Manning, A. (2007). Lousy and lovely jobs: The rising polarization of work in Britain. The review of economics and statistics, 89(1), 118-133.

Goos, M., Manning, A., & Salomons, A. (2009). Job polarization in Europe. American economic review, 99(2), 58-63.

Goos, M., Manning, A., & Salomons, A. (2014). Explaining job polarization: Routine-biased technological change and offshoring. American economic review, 104(8), 2509-2526.

Guo, N. (2022). Hollowing out of opportunity: Automation technology and intergenerational mobility in the United States. Labour Economics, 75, 102136.

Hardy, W., Keister, R., & Lewandowski, P. (2018). Educational upgrading, structural change and the task composition of jobs in Europe. Economics of Transition, 26(2), 201-231.

Hunt, J., & Nunn, R. (2022). Has US employment really polarized? A critical reappraisal. Labour Economics, 75, 102117.

Lee, J., Shim, M., & Yang, H. S. (2022). The rise of low-skill service employment: The role of dual-earner households. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 202, 255-273.

Leonardi, M. (2015). The effect of product demand on inequality: Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 7(3), 221-247.

Maarek, P., & Moiteaux, E. (2021). Polarization, employment and the minimum wage: Evidence from European local labor markets. Labour Economics, 73, 102076.

Montresor, G. (2019). Job polarization and labour supply changes in the UK. Labour Economics, 58, 187-203.

Moreno-Galbis, E., & Sopraseuth, T. (2014). Job polarization in aging economies. Labour Economics, 27, 44-55.

Oesch, D., & Piccitto, G. (2019). The polarization myth: Occupational upgrading in Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the UK, 1992–2015. Work and Occupations, 46(4), 441-469.

Terzidis, N., & Ortega‐Argilés, R. (2021). Employment polarization in regional labor markets: Evidence from the Netherlands. Journal of Regional Science, 61(5), 971-1001.