Technology, Skills, and Globalization: Explaining International Differences in Routine and Nonroutine Work Using Survey Data

Piotr Lewandowski, Albert Park, Wojciech Hardy, Yang Du and Saier Wu

The World Bank Economic Review, 2022, vol. 36, issue 3, 687-708

Abstract: The shift from routine work to nonroutine cognitive work is a key feature of labor markets globally, but there is little evidence on the extent to which tasks differ among workers performing the same jobs in different countries. This paper constructs survey-based measures of routine task intensity (RTI) of jobs consistent with those based on the U.S. O*NET database for workers in 47 countries. It confirms substantial cross-country differences in the content of work within occupations. The extent to which workers’ RTI is predicted by technology, supply of skills, globalization, and economic structure is assessed; and their contribution to the variation in RTI across countries is quantified. Technology is by far the most important factor. Supply of skills is next in importance, especially for workers in high-skilled occupations, while globalization is more important than skills for workers in low-skilled occupations. Occupational structure explains only about one-fifth of cross-country variation in RTI.

Keywords: tasks; jobs; labor; technology; globalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Technology, Skills, and Globalization: Explaining International Differences in Routine and Nonroutine Work Using Survey Data (2019)
Working Paper: Technology, Skills, and Globalization: Explaining International Differences in Routine and Nonroutine Work Using Survey Data (2019)
Working Paper: Technology, Skills, and Globalization: Explaining International Differences in Routine and Nonroutine Work Using Survey Data (2019)
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