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The Quiet Revolution and the Decline of Routine Jobs

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Abstract

What is the contribution of changes in female labor supply to the decline of employment in routine jobs observed in the U.S. between 1970 and 2000? While typically attributed to changes in labor demand, the decline of routine employment has been larger for women than for men, as women moved out of routine clerical roles and into high-skill professions. This paper assesses the contribution of the Quiet Revolution—a concurrent shift in women’s life-cycle labor supply from intermittent to continuous—to the reallocation of aggregate employment from routine to abstract jobs over this period. The Quiet Revolution plausibly contributed to women’s movement out of routine and into abstract occupations because the latter feature stronger human capital dynamics, offering returns to continuous work. I develop and calibrate an equilibrium model of the labor market that incorporates both the Quiet Revolution and changes in production technology. Counterfactual analyses reveal that while the Quiet Revolution accounts for 12% to 22% of the drop in the aggregate routine employment share, technology is the dominant force in explaining changes in the overall distribution of employment. Nonetheless, the Quiet Revolution is essential for gender-specific trends: without it, women would neither have entered the labor force nor transitioned into abstract occupations to the extent observed.

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  • Lindsey Uniat, 2026. "The Quiet Revolution and the Decline of Routine Jobs," Working Paper Series 2026-01, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:102313
    DOI: 10.24148/wp2026-01
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    1. Alessandra Fogli & Laura Veldkamp, 2011. "Nature or Nurture? Learning and the Geography of Female Labor Force Participation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(4), pages 1103-1138, July.
    2. Paul Beaudry & Ethan Lewis, 2014. "Do Male-Female Wage Differentials Reflect Differences in the Return to Skill? Cross-City Evidence from 1980-2000," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 178-194, April.
    3. Munseob Lee, 2024. "Allocation of Female Talent and Cross-Country Productivity Differences," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(664), pages 3333-3359.
    4. Martha J. Bailey, 2006. "More Power to the Pill: The Impact of Contraceptive Freedom on Women's Life Cycle Labor Supply," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(1), pages 289-320.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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