Routine and ageing? The Intergenerational Divide In The Deroutinisation Of Jobs In Europe

This paper analyses the age dimension of changes in the task composition of jobs in 12 European countries between 1998 and 2015. We use the approach proposed by Autor et al. (2003) and Acemoglu & Autor (2011), and combine O*NET occupation content data with EU-LFS individual data to construct five task content measures: non-routine cognitive analytical, non-routine cognitive interpersonal, routine cognitive, routine manual, and non-routine manual physical. We find that the shift away from routine work and toward non-routine work occurred much faster among workers aged between 25 and 44 than among younger workers and older workers. We find that in the majority of countries, the ageing of the workforce occurred more quickly in occupations that were initially more routine-intensive, as the share of older workers in these occupations was rising. We estimate logit models that show that individuals in these occupations were increasingly likely to be unemployed, especially if they were between the ages of 15 and 34.