http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2355-9141
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Abstract
Widening income inequality and growing employment at both ends of the wage distribution (employment polarization) have caused concerns that work autonomy might be undergoing analogous processes. We find that the distribution of work autonomy in eleven EU countries did not become more polarized in 2005–2015, and that information and communications technology use at work positively affects work autonomy, regardless of the skill level in occupations. Nevertheless, workplace size, part-time work, and the ownership of organizations may have the potential for a polarizing impact on autonomy. Some specifics of the included CEE countries were found, notably a decline in autonomy of high-skilled employees.
Notes
1. ISCED is an international classification of information about education. It is maintained by UNESCO and is intended to facilitate cross-national statistical comparisons of education outcomes. Currently, ISCED includes nine levels of education, ranging from early childhood education to doctoral education.
2. Nevertheless, the rankings are similar across countries. An aggregate group made up of agricultural workers (ISCO 61, 62, and 92) is the only occupational group in which all the autonomy terciles have relatively high shares across countries. However, the share of this group in employment, and therefore significance in the analysis, is very small in all the countries. See Appendix A for the sorting of occupations to autonomy terciles.
3. The data do not offer enough observations for us to be able to reliably create the terciles separately for different waves. However, we do not assume that the rankings change very quickly in the individual countries.