Phasing out: routine tasks and retirement

Phasing out: routine tasks and retirement
Lucas van der Velde
FAME|GRAPE
Warsaw Schoool of Economics
December 2017
IBS Jobs conference
van der Velde FAME|GRAPE Warsaw Schoool of Economics

Introduction
Introduction
Motivation
Ageing problem in Europe
OECD (2006) “Live longer, work longer”
Ageing occurs in a context of technological change
Autor et al. (2003), Acemoglu and Autor (2011)
Are these changes opportunities or challenges for older workers
Hypothesis
Workers in more routine occupations reduced their labour supply more
than workers in other occupations

Introduction
Insights from theory
The human capital approach ⇒ Older workers face worse perspectives
Autor and Dorn (2009), Jaimovich and Siu (2012), Carrillo-Tudela and Visschers (2013)
Lower returns to investment → difficults reallocation
(Taylor and Urwin 2001, Lindsay et al. 2013, Lazazzara et al. 2013)
Older workers concentrated in more routine occupations
Might be more likely to end up in unemployment
(Autor et al. 2003, Acemoglu and Autor 2011, Goos et al. 2014)
More difficulties to find employment in growing sector
(Baert et al. 2015, Neumark et al. 2015)

Introduction
Insights from theory: revisiting results
Why do we need more analysis on the topic?
Occupations as monolithic constructs?
(Caballero and Hammour 1996, Spitz-Oener 2006)
Automation as improvement in working conditions
Physical jobs → Early retirement
(Filer and Petri 1988, Lund and Villadsen 2005)
Monotonous jobs → Early retirement
(Dal Bianco et al. 2015)
lack of discretion → Early retirement
(Harju et al. 2014)
Use of individual longitudinal data

Data and method
Data: O*NET
Task content of occupations
Occupational Network (O*NET) data from 2008
Data collected from US workers, available at occupation level
Information on importance and frequency of tasks
Five tasks (as in e.g. Autor et al. 2003, Acemoglu and Autor 2011)
Routine: cognitive and manual
Non-routine: cognitive, interpersonal and manual
Routine task intensity index RTI = routine − non-routine
Applied to EU countries before
(e.g. Goos and Manning 2007, Goos et al. 2014, Lewandowski et al. 2016)
Independent measure for each country.

Data and method
Data: European Panels
German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP)
1984 - today (West Germany)
∼ 2000 unique observations for people > 50
Median: 4 observations per individual
British Household Panel Survey (BHPS)
1991 - 2008 → Discontinued
∼ 4500 unique observations for people > 50
Median: 2 observations per individual

Data and method
The path to retirement: Extensive margin
0
.25
.5
.75
1
Percentageofpopulation
50 55 60 65
Age
FT PT SE UN IN
Germany
0
.25
.5
.75
1
Percentageofpopulation
50 55 60 65
Age
FT PT SE UN IN
Great Britain
a) Germany a) Great Britain
Notes: Frequency of labor market status in each age. FT stands for Full Time
employment, PT for Part Time employment, SE for Self Employment, UN for
unemployed and IN for inactive.

Data and method
The path to retirement: Intensive margin
0
−5
−10
−15
Coefficientsand95%CI
51 55 60 65
Age
Germany Great Britain
Notes: Age coeﬃcients from a Deaton decomposition of hours
worked. Sample includes wage-employed individuals
aged 50 to 65 with at least one hour of work.

Data and method
The path to retirement: Task content of jobs (RTI)
.5
.25
0
−.25
−.5
51 55 60 65
Age
Notes: Age coeﬃcients from a Deaton decomposition of RTI.
Sample includes wage-employed individuals age 50 to 65.

Results
Labour supply decision: intensive margin
Speciﬁcation
hours = α + β1RTI + β2(Age ≥ a) + β3RTI ∗ (Age ≥ a) + Xψ + ,
where
hours is the usual number of hours worked.
β1 indicates relation for the entire population
β2 Additional penalty for workers aged > a
β3 Coeﬃcient of interest → H0 : β3 < 0
X represents a set of controls
(age and its square, gender, marital status, education level, years of experience, industry and
occupations)

Results
Intensive margin
hours = α + β1RTI + β2(Age ≥ a) + β3RTI ∗ (Age ≥ a) + Xψ +
(a = 50) (a = 55) (a = 60) (a = 50) (a = 55) (a = 60)
RTI -0.47** -0.43** -0.41** -1.09*** -1.10*** -1.07***
(Age ≥ a) 0.54*** 0.04 -2.24*** 0.53** -1.52*** -2.34***
RTI *(Age ≥ a) 0.26 0.16 0.23 0.17 0.42* -0.11
R2 0.78 0.78 0.78 0.75 0.75 0.75
N 90,411 90,411 90,411 52,920 52,920 52,920
Notes: Standard errors clustered at the occupation level, ISCO 88
three digits, showed in parenthesis. *,**,*** denote signiﬁcance
at the 10%, 5% and 1% level.

Results
Intensive margin: control for selection
hours = α + β1RTI + β2(Age ≥ a) + β3RTI ∗ (Age ≥ a) + Xψ +
(a = 50) (a = 55) (a = 60) (a = 50) (a = 55) (a = 60)
RTI -0.50*** -0.43*** -0.37*** -1.30*** -1.29*** -1.24***
(Age > a) 2.10*** -0.25 -4.54*** 1.09*** -1.60*** -3.49***
RTI *(Age > a) 0.37*** 0.30** -0.49** 0.13 0.14 -0.29
N 128,753 128,753 128,753 88,519 88,519 88,519
Notes: The selection equation does not include variables related
to current position (industry and occupation) and includes an
interaction between marital status and gender, and household size
as exclusion restrictions. Robust standard errors in parentheses.
*,**,*** indicate signiﬁcance at the 10%, 5% and 1% level.

Results
Labour supply decision: extensive margin
Speciﬁcation
Pr(retiret) = α + β1RTI + Xψ + ,
where
Retiret = 1 if work in t-1 and unemployed since t
β1 Coeﬃcient of interest → H0 : β1 > 0
X represents a set of controls
(age and its square, gender ×marital status, education level, household size, years of
experience, productivity parameter)

Results
Extensive margin
Pr(Retire|age) = α + β1RTI + Xψ +
Fixed effects Panel Logit
Age 50-54 Age 55-59 Age 60-65 RTI changes RTI const.
Germany 0.001 0.001 0.009 0.020 0.026*
(0.002) (0.004) (0.008) (0.013) (0.013)
Great Britain 0.002 0.002 0.010 0.041** 0.029
(0.002) (0.004) (0.009) (0.021) (0.020)
Notes: Estimations in columns 1 to 4 obtained with linear proba-
bility models and fixed effects, whereas columns 5 and 6 presents
results with Random effect models. Individual level cluster stan-
dard errors presented in parentheses. *,**,*** indicate signifi-
cance at the 10%, 5% and 1% level.

Results
Conclusions
1 Do older workers work fewer hours?
Not necessarily
Reduction in hours among older workers similar to rest.
Effect slightly positive <30 minutes per week.
2 Do workers in routine occupation retire sooner?
Maybe
Effect is statistically significant, but economically small.
Implications
→ Theory: how to characterize occupational change?
→ Policy: are ALMP necessary / sufficient to keep workers active?

Results
Thank you for your attention

Results
References I
Acemoglu, D. and Autor, D.: 2011, Skills, tasks and technologies: Implications for
employment and earnings, Handbook of Labor Economics 4, 1043–1171.
Autor, D. and Dorn, D.: 2009, This job is “getting old”: Measuring changes in job
opportunities using occupational age structure, American Economic Review
99(2), 45–51.
Autor, D., Levy, F. and Murnane, R. J.: 2003, The skill content of recent
technological change: An empirical exploration, Quarterly Journal of Economics
118(4), 1279–1333.
Baert, S., Norga, J., Thuy, Y. and van Hecke, M.: 2015, Getting grey hairs in the
labour market: An alternative experiment on age discrimination, Discussion paper,
Institute for Study of Labor (IZA).
Caballero, R. J. and Hammour, M. L.: 1996, On the timing and eﬃciency of creative
destruction, Quarterly Journal of Economics 111(3), 805–852.
Carrillo-Tudela, C. and Visschers, L.: 2013, Unemployment and endogenous
reallocation over the business cycle, Discussion Papers 7124, Institute for Study of
Labor (IZA).

Results
References II
Dal Bianco, C., Trevisan, E. and Weber, G.: 2015, “I want to break free”. The role of
working conditions on retirement expectations and decisions, European Journal of
Ageing 12(1), 17–28.
Filer, R. K. and Petri, P. A.: 1988, A job-characteristics theory of retirement, The
Review of Economics and Statistics 70(1), 123–128.
Goos, M. and Manning, A.: 2007, Lousy and lovely jobs: The rising polarization of
work in Britain, Review of Economics and Statistics 89(1), 118–133.
Goos, M., Manning, A. and Salomons, A.: 2014, Explaining job polarization:
Routine-biased technological change and oﬀshoring, American Economic Review
104(8), 2509–2526.
Harju, L., Hakanen, J. J. and Schaufeli, W. B.: 2014, Job boredom and its correlates
in 87 ﬁnnish organizations, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
56(9), 911–918.
Jaimovich, N. and Siu, H. E.: 2012, The trend is the cycle: Job polarization and
jobless recoveries, Working paper 18 334, National Bureau of Economic Research.

Results
References III
Lazazzara, A., Karpi´nska, K. and Henkens, K.: 2013, What factors inﬂuence training
opportunities for older workers? Three factorial surveys exploring the attitudes of
HR professionals, International Journal of Human Resource Management
24(11), 2154–2172.
Lewandowski, P., Hardy, W. and Keister, R.: 2016, Technology or upskilling? Trends
in the task tomposition of jobs in Central and Eastern Europe, IBS Working Papers
(01/2016).
Lindsay, C., Canduela, J. and Raeside, R.: 2013, Polarization in access to work-related
training in Great Britain, Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(2), 205–225.
Lund, T. and Villadsen, E.: 2005, Who retires early and why? Determinants of early
retirement pension among Danish employees 57– 62 years, European Journal of
Ageing 2(4), 275–280.
Neumark, D., Song, J. and Button, P.: 2015, Does protecting older workers from
discrimination make it harder to get hired? Evidence from disability discrimination
laws, Working Paper 21379, National Bureau of Economic Research.
Spitz-Oener, A.: 2006, Technical change, job tasks, and rising educational demands:
Looking outside the wage structure, Journal of Labor Economics 24(2), 235–270.
Taylor, P. and Urwin, P.: 2001, Age and participation in vocational education and
training, Work, Employment & Society 15(4), 763–779.

Appendix
The path to retirement: Task content of jobs (detailed)
.5
.25
0
−.25
−.5
51 55 60 65
Age
Germany
.5
.25
0
−.25
−.5
51 55 60 65
Age
United Kingdom
Non−routine: Personal Analytical Manual
Routine : Cognitive Manual
Notes: Age coeﬃcients from a Deaton decomposition of RTI.
Sample includes wage-employed individuals age 50 to 65.

Phasing out: routine tasks and retirement

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