The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market
We offer a unified analysis of the growth of low-skill service occupations between 1980 and 2005 and the concurrent polarization of US employment and wages. We hypothesize that polarization stems from the interaction between consumer preferences, which favor variety over specialization, and the fall...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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American Economic Association
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82614 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6915-9381 |
| _version_ | 1826189796538580992 |
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| author | Autor, David H. Dorn, David |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics Autor, David H. Dorn, David |
| author_sort | Autor, David H. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | We offer a unified analysis of the growth of low-skill service occupations between 1980 and 2005 and the concurrent polarization of US employment and wages. We hypothesize that polarization stems from the interaction between consumer preferences, which favor variety over specialization, and the falling cost of automating routine, codifiable job tasks. Applying a spatial equilibrium model, we corroborate four implications of this hypothesis. Local labor markets that specialized in routine tasks differentially adopted information technology, reallocated low-skill labor into service occupations (employment polarization), experienced earnings growth at the tails of the distribution (wage polarization), and received inflows of skilled labor. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:23:05Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/82614 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:23:05Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | American Economic Association |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/826142022-09-30T09:12:20Z The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market Autor, David H. Dorn, David Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics Autor, David H. We offer a unified analysis of the growth of low-skill service occupations between 1980 and 2005 and the concurrent polarization of US employment and wages. We hypothesize that polarization stems from the interaction between consumer preferences, which favor variety over specialization, and the falling cost of automating routine, codifiable job tasks. Applying a spatial equilibrium model, we corroborate four implications of this hypothesis. Local labor markets that specialized in routine tasks differentially adopted information technology, reallocated low-skill labor into service occupations (employment polarization), experienced earnings growth at the tails of the distribution (wage polarization), and received inflows of skilled labor. National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CAREER award SES-0239538) Swiss National Science Foundation 2013-11-27T19:48:59Z 2013-11-27T19:48:59Z 2013-08 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0002-8282 1944-7981 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82614 Autor, David H, and David Dorn."The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market." American Economic Review 103(5): (2013).1553–1597. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6915-9381 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.5.1553 American Economic Review Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Economic Association American Economic Association |
| spellingShingle | Autor, David H. Dorn, David The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market |
| title | The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market |
| title_full | The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market |
| title_fullStr | The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market |
| title_short | The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market |
| title_sort | growth of low skill service jobs and the polarization of the us labor market |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82614 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6915-9381 |
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