Routinization, within-occupation task changes and long-run employment dynamics

This study contributes to the literature on routinization and employment by capturing within- occupation task changes over the period 1980-2010. The main contribution is the measurement of such changes combining two data sources on occupational task content for the United States: the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and the Occupational Information Network. We show that within-occupation task change: i) accounts for 1/3 of the decline in routine-task use; ii) accelerates in the 1990s, decelerates in the 2000s but with significant catching-up; iii) is associated with educational upgrading in several dimensions and iv) allows escaping the employment decline conditional on initial routine-task intensity.