IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jlabrs/v59y2025i1d10.1186_s12651-025-00397-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A study of job polarization in Sweden from an urban-rural perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Nordin

    (AgriFood Economics Centre, Lund university)

  • Cecilia Hammarlund

    (AgriFood Economics Centre, Lund university)

  • Andreas Bergh

    (Lund University)

Abstract

This study is an explorative examination of changes in employment, revenue, and firm structure for low, mid, and high-skill firms in urban and rural areas in Sweden from 2007 to 2019, using skill groups based on education levels. For employment in Sweden in general, we find evidence of job upgrading. In the city of Stockholm we also document job polarization in the sense that employment in both low-skill and high-skill industries increased. We discuss various reasons why job polarization might be an urban phenomenon. We also document some consolidation towards larger firms in the low-skill sector and note that the revenue share of high-skill industries was constant during the period. Even though Swedish labour market institutions differ substantially from those of other OECD countries, the patterns of job polarization are strikingly similar.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Nordin & Cecilia Hammarlund & Andreas Bergh, 2025. "A study of job polarization in Sweden from an urban-rural perspective," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 59(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jlabrs:v:59:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1186_s12651-025-00397-y
    DOI: 10.1186/s12651-025-00397-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s12651-025-00397-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1186/s12651-025-00397-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Egger, Hartmut & Kreickemeier, Udo & Moser, Christoph & Wrona, Jens, 2024. "Offshoring and job polarisation between firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    2. David Card, 2005. "Is the New Immigration Really so Bad?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(507), pages 300-323, November.
    3. Francesca Mazzolari & Giuseppe Ragusa, 2013. "Spillovers from High-Skill Consumption to Low-Skill Labor Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 74-86, March.
    4. Esteban Rossi-Hansberg & Pierre-Daniel Sarte & Felipe Schwartzman, 2019. "Cognitive Hubs and Spatial Redistribution," NBER Working Papers 26267, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. David Autor & David Dorn & Lawrence F Katz & Christina Patterson & John Van Reenen, 2020. "The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms [“Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 645-709.
    6. Bergh, Andreas & Funcke, Alexander & Wernberg, Joakim, 2021. "The Sharing Economy: Definition, Measurement and its Relationship to Capitalism," Working Paper Series 1380, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    7. Maarten Goos & Alan Manning & Anna Salomons, 2014. "Explaining Job Polarization: Routine-Biased Technological Change and Offshoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2509-2526, August.
    8. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1279-1333.
    9. David H. Autor & David Dorn, 2013. "The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1553-1597, August.
    10. Sundararajan, Arun, 2016. "The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262034573, December.
    11. Alan S. Blinder, 2009. "How Many US Jobs Might be Offshorable?," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 10(2), pages 41-78, April.
    12. Giovanni Peri, 2016. "Immigrants, Productivity, and Labor Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 3-30, Fall.
    13. Maarten Goos & Alan Manning, 2007. "Lousy and Lovely Jobs: The Rising Polarization of Work in Britain," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 118-133, February.
    14. Andreas Bergh, 2014. "Sweden and the Revival of the Capitalist Welfare State," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15717.
    15. Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2013. "Alternative Measures of Offshorability: A Survey Approach," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(S1), pages 97-128.
    16. Martin Henning & Rikard H Eriksson, 2021. "Labour market polarisation as a localised process: evidence from Sweden," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 14(1), pages 69-91.
    17. Adrian Adermon & Magnus Gustavsson, 2015. "Job Polarization and Task-Biased Technological Change: Evidence from Sweden, 1975–2005," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(3), pages 878-917, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nikolaos Terzidis & Raquel Ortega‐Argilés, 2021. "Employment polarization in regional labor markets: Evidence from the Netherlands," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(5), pages 971-1001, November.
    2. Michael J. Böhm, 2020. "The price of polarization: Estimating task prices under routine‐biased technical change," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(2), pages 761-799, May.
    3. Zsófia L. Bárány & Christian Siegel, 2018. "Job Polarization and Structural Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 57-89, January.
    4. Antonio Martins-Neto & Nanditha Mathew & Pierre Mohnen & Tania Treibich, 2024. "Is There Job Polarization in Developing Economies? A Review and Outlook," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 39(2), pages 259-288.
    5. Sevinç, Orhun, 2017. "Skill-biased technical change and Labor market polarization:the role of skill heterogeneity within occupations," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86147, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Harrigan, James & Reshef, Ariell & Toubal, Farid, 2021. "The March of the Techies: Job Polarization Within and Between Firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(7).
    7. Andrea Salvatori, 2018. "The anatomy of job polarisation in the UK," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 52(1), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Maarten Goos & Alan Manning & Anna Salomons, 2014. "Explaining Job Polarization: Routine-Biased Technological Change and Offshoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2509-2526, August.
    9. Andreas Beerli & Ronald Indergand & Johannes S. Kunz, 2023. "The supply of foreign talent: how skill-biased technology drives the location choice and skills of new immigrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 681-718, April.
    10. Raquel Sebastian, 2018. "Explaining job polarisation in Spain from a task perspective," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 215-248, June.
    11. Blanchard, Emily & Willmann, Gerald, 2016. "Trade, education, and the shrinking middle class," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 263-278.
    12. Heyman, Fredrik, 2016. "Job polarization, job tasks and the role of firms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 246-251.
    13. Valeria Cirillo & Mario Pianta & Leopoldo Nascia, 2018. "Technology and Occupations in Business Cycles," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-25, February.
    14. Fonseca, Tiago & Lima, Francisco & Pereira, Sonia C., 2018. "Job polarization, technological change and routinization: Evidence for Portugal," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 317-339.
    15. David J. Deming, 2017. "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1593-1640.
    16. Bárány, Zsófia L. & Siegel, Christian, 2020. "Biased technological change and employment reallocation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    17. van der Velde, Lucas, 2022. "Phasing out: Routine tasks and retirement," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 784-803.
    18. Michael J. Böhm & Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Felix Schran, 2024. "Occupation Growth, Skill Prices, and Wage Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 201-243.
    19. Keller, Wolfgang & Utar, Hale, 2023. "International trade and job polarization: Evidence at the worker level," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    20. Irene Brunetti & Valerio Intraligi & Andrea Ricci & Valeria Cirillo, 2020. "Low‐skill jobs and routine tasks specialization: New insights from Italian provinces," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(6), pages 1561-1581, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jlabrs:v:59:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1186_s12651-025-00397-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.