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Title: The End of Polarization? Technological Change and Employment in the U.S. Labor Market
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2015
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Abstract: A key feature of the U.S. labor market since 1980 is the substantial growth of the employment in high skill occupations and low skill manual-service occupations at the expense of the middleskill occupations, and there is a substantial literature attributing this change to technological change. However, since 1999, the employment growth of workers in high skill occupations has decelerated markedly despite continued rapid growth in technology. This paper documents this novel trend in the U.S. labor market and examines the role of technological change in explaining this phenomenon. I hypothesize that technological advancements have expanded what computers can do and, as a result, changed the relationship between technology adoption and labor demand. In this new paradigm, workers in high skill occupations face a double-edged sword of new technology adoption as in earlier periods, some of the tasks performed primarily by workers remain as complements to computerization, while others are now substitutes as a result of the increasing capabilities of technology. This change has depressed the labor demand growth for high skill jobs. I test this hypothesis using the task-based framework developed by Autor, Levy and Murnane (2003) and later enriched by Acemoglu and Autor (2011), combined with data from the Current Population Survey and the Online Occupational Network Survey (O*NET). I find evidence for this changed relationship between technology adoption and demand for labor in highly skilled occupations; these changes in labor demand for tasks driven by technological adoption can explain a substantial portion of the stagnancy in labor demand growth for high skill occupation in the 2000s.
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Authors: Lu, Qian
Publisher: University of Texas at Austin
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other
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