IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedawp/103416.html

The Anatomy of Polarization: Evidence from Worker Flows

Author

Abstract

Using longitudinal French administrative data (1984–2021), we document that employment polarization after 1994 reflects major changes in labor-market entry rather than mass occupational downgrading or displacement of incumbents. Flows from routine to abstract occupations remain substantial throughout the period, and a large fraction of these upgrades is due to noncollege workers. The decisive shift that generates polarization occurs at the entry margin: the net flow from nonemployment into routine occupations reverses around 1994, while the net flow from nonemployment into manual work increases. These patterns motivate life-cycle models of occupational choice that explicitly incorporate cohort heterogeneity and separate entry and re-entry margins.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabio Cerina & Elisa Dienesch & Alexander Monge-Naranjo & Alessio Moro, 2026. "The Anatomy of Polarization: Evidence from Worker Flows," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2026-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedawp:103416
    DOI: 10.29338/wp2026-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cortes, Guido Matias & Jaimovich, Nir & Nekarda, Christopher J. & Siu, Henry E., 2020. "The dynamics of disappearing routine jobs: A flows approach," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    2. Nir Jaimovich & Henry E. Siu, 2020. "Job Polarization and Jobless Recoveries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 129-147, March.
    3. Davis, Donald R. & Mengus, Eric & Michalski, Tomasz K., 2026. "Labor market polarization and the great urban divergence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    4. 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.
    5. Pietro Garibaldi & Pedro Gomes & Thepthida Sopraseuth, 2025. "Economic consequences of vertical mismatch," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 16(2), pages 535-564, May.
    6. García-Peñalosa, Cecilia & Petit, Fabien & van Ypersele, Tanguy, 2023. "Can workers still climb the social ladder as middling jobs become scarce? Evidence from two British cohorts," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    7. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    8. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2006. "The Polarization of the U.S. Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 189-194, May.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Jonas Loebbing, 2026. "Automation and Polarization," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 134(3), pages 1017-1072.
    10. repec:cam:camjip:2427 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Guido Matias Cortes, 2016. "Where Have the Middle-Wage Workers Gone? A Study of Polarization Using Panel Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 63-105.
    12. 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.
    13. Cortes, Guido Matias & Jaimovich, Nir & Siu, Henry E., 2017. "Disappearing routine jobs: Who, how, and why?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 69-87.
    14. Fabio Cerina & Elisa Dienesch & Alessio Moro & Michelle Rendall, 2023. "Spatial Polarisation," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(649), pages 30-69.
    15. Fabio Cerina & Alessio Moro & Michelle Rendall, 2021. "The Role Of Gender In Employment Polarization," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1655-1691, November.
    16. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2020. "Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2188-2244.
    17. Bocquet, L., 2024. "The Network Origin of Slow Labour Reallocation," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2465, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    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. repec:hal:journl:hal-04837769 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Maarek, Paul & Moiteaux, Elliot, 2021. "Polarization, employment and the minimum wage: Evidence from European local labor markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    3. Hensvik, Lena & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2023. "The skill-specific impact of past and projected occupational decline," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    4. Schmidpeter, Bernhard & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2021. "Automation, unemployment, and the role of labor market training," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    5. Chuan, Amanda & Zhang, Weilong, 2023. "Non-college Occupations, Workplace Routinization, and the Gender Gap in College Enrollment," IZA Discussion Papers 16089, IZA Network @ LISER.
    6. vom Lehn, Christian, 2020. "Labor market polarization, the decline of routine work, and technological change: A quantitative analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 62-80.
    7. Chuan, A. & Zhang, W., 2021. "Non-College Occupations, Workplace Routinization, and the Gender Gap in College Enrollment," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2177, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    8. Cortes, Guido Matias & Jaimovich, Nir & Nekarda, Christopher J. & Siu, Henry E., 2020. "The dynamics of disappearing routine jobs: A flows approach," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    9. Terhi Maczulskij, 2024. "Occupational Mobility of Routine Workers," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 86(5), pages 1198-1229, October.
    10. Arntz, Melanie & Ivanov, Boris & Pohlan, Laura, 2022. "Regional Structural Change and the Effects of Job Loss," IZA Discussion Papers 15313, IZA Network @ LISER.
    11. Delaporte, Isaure & Peña, Werner, 2025. "The dynamics of disappearing routine jobs in Chile: An analysis of the link between deroutinisation and informality," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    12. Davis, Donald R. & Mengus, Eric & Michalski, Tomasz K., 2026. "Labor market polarization and the great urban divergence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    13. Caselli, Mauro & Fracasso, Andrea & Scicchitano, Sergio & Traverso, Silvio & Tundis, Enrico, 2025. "What workers and robots do: An activity-based analysis of the impact of robotization on changes in local employment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(1).
    14. Battisti & M. Del Gatto & A. Gravina & C. Parmeter, 2021. "Robots versus labor skills: a complementarity/substitutability analysis," Working Paper CRENoS 202104, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    15. Gaetano Basso, 2020. "The Evolution of the Occupational Structure in Italy, 2007–2017," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 152(2), pages 673-704, November.
    16. Cortes, Matias & Lerche, Adrian & Schönberg, Uta & Tschopp, Jeanne, 2023. "Technological Change, Firm Heterogeneity and Wage Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 16070, IZA Network @ LISER.
    17. Blien, Uwe & Dauth, Wolfgang & Roth, Duncan H.W., 2021. "Occupational routine intensity and the costs of job loss: evidence from mass layoffs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    18. Clément Bosquet & Paul Maarek & Elliot Moiteaux, 2021. "Routine-biased technological change and wages by education level: Occupational downgrading and displacement effects," Working Papers hal-03270715, HAL.
    19. Dias Da Silva, António & Laws, Athene & Petroulakis, Filippos, 2019. "Hours of work polarisation?," Working Paper Series 2324, European Central Bank.
    20. Dabed, Diego & Genz, Sabrina & Rademakers, Emilie, 2025. "Equalising the effects of automation? The role of task overlap for job finding," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    21. Joseph Marchand, 2020. "Routine Tasks were Demanded from Workers during an Energy Boom," Working Papers 2020-08, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedawp:103416. 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: Rob Sarwark (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbatus.html .

    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.