Occupational Change in Europe

Abstract

Abstract At least since the Industrial Revolution and Karl Marx, scholars have been obsessed by the question of how the employment structure evolves: towards good jobs, bad jobs or increasing polarization? This book throws new light on this old question. It does so by sifting through a mountain of employment data in order to identify the pattern of occupational change in Britain, Denmark, Germany, Spain and Switzerland since 1990. The book first presents novel evidence on shifts in the employment structure and then explains them by analyzing five driving forces of occupational change: technological change, international trade, educational expansion, low-skilled migration and wage-setting institutions. This book addresses the two ongoing debates about middle-class erosion and the alleged trade-off between equality and full employment. The question raised is whether occupational change transforms European countries into large middle-class societies. Or, on the contrary, whether these countries turn into increasingly divided class societies. The book further discusses whether governments really have no other choice than between occupational upgrading with soaring unemployment or full employment with expanding low-end jobs. It book thus gives the reader a clear idea about the future of work, skills and employment in contemporary Europe. Thereby, it makes a major contribution to the state-of-the art in economic sociology and labour economics.

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