Routine and Ageing? The Intergenerational Divide in the Deroutinisation of Jobs in Europe

Piotr Lewandowski, Roma Keister, Wojciech Hardy and Szymon Górka

No 10732, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper analyses the age dimension of changes in the task composition of jobs in 12 European countries between 1998 and 2014. We use the approach proposed by Autor et al. (2003) and Acemoglu & Autor (2011), and combine O*NET occupation content data with EU-LFS individual data to construct five task content measures: non-routine cognitive analytical, non-routine cognitive interpersonal, routine cognitive, routine manual, and nonroutine manual physical. We estimate occupation-level and worker-level regressions and find that the shift away from routine work and toward non-routine work occurred much faster among workers born between 1970 and 1989 than among workers born between 1950 and 1969. In the majority of countries, the ageing of the workforce occurred more quickly in occupations that were initially more routine-intensive, as the share of young workers in these occupations was declining. Individuals in these occupations were increasingly likely to be unemployed, especially if they were between the ages of 15 and 34.

Keywords: occupational change; ageing; routinisation; task content of jobs; O*NET (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J21 J23 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-eur and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Forthcoming - published as 'Ageing of routine jobs in Europe' in: Economic Systems, 2020, 100816.

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Working Paper: Routine and ageing? The Intergenerational Divide In The Deroutinisation Of Jobs In Europe (2017)
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