In developed countries like the United States, Germany, and the UK, it has been observed that workers who perform non-routine activities, either cognitive or manual, have benefited in terms of employment and income, while those performing routinary tasks have seen their job prospects and wages decline. This has led to not only a polarization of the labor markets but also a decrease in certain measures of inequality. This phenomenon has been attributed to task-based technological change (TBTC), which differs from the skilled biased technological change in the fact that not only highly skilled workers have benefited from technology advancement. This book presents evidence of how digitalization and TBTC are affecting the labor markets of different regions of the world and examines the factors that cause this inequality among nations.
It examines recent issues around the effect of TBTC on the labor market and the economy in general, with a comparison of different countries in Central and Eastern Europe, North America, and Latin America, as well as in other regions of the world. The incorporation of these regions presents relevant particularities for the subject matter addressed in the book. The book also considers questions such as how labor market effects differ by gender and what the impact of digital skills on employment, inequalities, and public policies might be. In so doing, it identifies the advances, opportunities, and changes that have taken place, while also making public policy proposals.
This book will be a key reading to the global community of graduate students and researchers in the field of economics and, specifically, in the study of labor markets.
Introduction 1. Technical change, the task content of jobs and wage premium distribution in CEE countries Lukasz Arendt, Wojciech Grabowski 2. Digital skills and employment: inequalities and public policies in the European Union Myriam Rodríguez-Pasquín, María López-Martínez, Olga García-Luque 3. Task-biased technological change in Germany Is it the routine or the manual? Marco Seegers, Kathrin Ehmann 4. The acceleration of technological change in times of Covid-19: the case of Spain David Castro Lugo, Diego Dueñas Fernández, Raquel Llorente Heras, Reyna Rodríguez 5. The risk of technologically triggered job destruction – a view from Latin America Sonia Gontero, Susie McKenzie, Jürguen Weller. 6. Has polarization benefited Latin American workers in the US? Reyna Rodríguez-Pérez, Liliana Meza-González, Gregory Brock 7. The impact of the digital economy on sectoral labor productivity in the Northamerican economy, 2005-2020. Jorge Eduardo Mendoza, Brenda Luciel Méndez 8. Routine tasks and job polarization in Mexico Gloria Ochoa, Aldo Josafat Torres 9. The role of occupational polarization in the face of the occupational risk of automation in the Mexican economy Reyna Elizabeth Rodríguez Pérez, Karina Jazmin García Bermúdez 10. Routinization in Brazil: It´s effects on the formal and the informal labor markets Gustavo Leyva
Reyna Elizabeth Rodríguez Pérez is a professor-researcher at the Faculty of Economics, Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, Saltillo, México. Liliana Meza González is a professor at the International Studies Department, Universidad Iberoamericana, Lomas de Santa Fe, México.
