JOBS AT RISK? Task approach to labour market risks and immigration attitudes. Antti Kaihovaara & Zhen Im University of Helsinki

Transcription

1 JOBS AT RISK? Task attitudes Antti Kaihovaara & Zhen Im University of Helsinki 2018 IPES Conference Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/2018 1

2 MOTIVATION & BACKGROUND Cultural factors are clearly important sources of antiimmigrant attitudes, but are economic factors overlooked? Not much support for the labour market competition hypothesis; Hainmueller and Hopkins (2014) call it something of a zombie theory But there are other (possible) labour market related explanations Misattribution (Geraci et al 2017); Misinformation (Alesina et al. 2018) Bitterness (Poutvaara & Steinhardt 2018) Relative deprivation (Rooduijn & Burgoon 2018) attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/2018 2

3 APPROACH & FINDINGS RESEARCH QUESTION Are workers who are most vulnerable to technological change and offshoring also most anti-immigrant? FINDINGS 1. Occupational routine intensity predicts negative immigration attitudes 2. Occupational offshorability predicts positive immigration attitudes 3. Immigration attitudes become more polarized as occupational offshorability increases attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/2018 3

4 WHY TASK APPROACH? TRADE IN TASKS: The changing nature of global production. Heterogeneity in distributional consequences of trade between workers in same industries and nominally same skill-levels Occupations consist of a bundle of tasks Individuals are more likely to change industry of employment than occupation (stickiness) Difficulties in measuring the (relevant) skill-level of individuals attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/2018 4

5 WHY TASK APPROACH? JOB POLARIZATION: Pervasive across advanced economies. Hollowing out of employment opportunities. Growth in high-wage and low-wage occupations, but (relative) decline in the middle. Technological change and offshoring can account for three quarters of job polarization in Western Europe (Goos et al. 2014) Task routineness: vulnerability to technological change Offshorability: vulnerability to offshoring (or trade competition) attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/2018 5

6 ARGUMENT Labour market risks and prospects diverge based on the threat of automation and exposure to global economy. This divergence affects political preferences. Associated with views on trade (Owen & Johnston 2017), redistribution and social protection (Thewissen & Rueda 2017; Walter 2017) and immigration (Dancygier & Walter 2015; Geraci et al. 2017) attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/2018 6

7 DATA European Social Survey The most comprehensive survey on human values in Europe 16 (32) countries over 7 waves Offshorability Index (Blinder 2009) (1) Job must be performed on site and (2) requires face-to-face interaction SOC to ISCO Routine task index (Acemoglu & Autor 2011) ln(routineness) - ln(abstractness)- ln(manualness) O*NET to SOC to ISCO attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/2018 7

8 MODEL LHS = Immigration bad or good for economy (scale 0 to 10) RHS = Occupational characteristics Offshorability Dummy 0 = non-offshorable; 1 = offshorable Task routineness Centered. Ranges from to We use as continuous. Controls: age, gender, minority group, education, income, main activity (left-right scale, trust in people, work contract type, satisfied with the economy) attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/2018 8

9 MODEL Y i,c,t = β 0 + β 1 RTI i,c,t + β 2 OFF i,c,t + β 3 RTI i,c,t OFF i,c,t + β 4 Z i,c,t + ε i,c,t Here, Y i,c,t measures the attitudes toward immigration of individual i in country c in the year t, RTI i,c,t is the occupational task routineness, OFF i,c,t is a dummy for offshorability, RTI i,c,t OFF i,c,t is the interaction term of task routineness and offshorability and Z i,c,t is a vector of control variables. OLS, Fixed country and year effects, clustered standard errors, design and population size weights attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/2018 9

10 TASK CONTENT AND INCOME Workers in offshorable occupations enjoy higher income Workers in routine occupations have lower income attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/

11 RESULTS Basic Model Interaction Term Basic Controls Income Subjective Controls Offshorable 0.359*** 0.419*** 0.243*** 0.221*** 0.173*** RTI *** *** *** *** *** Interaction term *** *** *** *** Country & Year Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Main activity No No Yes Yes Yes Observations attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/

12 RESULTS Difference between the most and least routine occupation: Non-offshorable: 0.88 Offshorable: 1.70 attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/

13 ROBUSTNESS Model Offshorable Routine Task Index Offshorable X Routine Task Index (0) Main model from Table 1.173*** -.192*** -.178*** (1) Industry controls.153*** -.182*** -.158*** (2) Foreign-born in occupation.153*** -.199*** -.118*** (ISCO 3) (3) Production workers.159*** -.170*** (4) Offshorability continuous.003*** -.190*** -.003*** (5) Offshorability + RTI (ISCO 2).141*** -.070*** -.152*** (6) All 32 countries.116** -.118*** -.147*** (7) Left-right scale.163*** -.183*** -.184*** (8) Work contract type.153*** -.197*** -.153*** (9) Type of organization ( ).199*** -.171*** -.212*** (10) First 4 waves.166*** -.204*** -.148** (11) Last 3 waves.186*** -.184*** -.219*** (12) Young workers (40 or under).222*** -.144*** -.342*** (13) Old workers (over 40).134*** -.213*** (14) Worried about household income ** -.282** (15) Multilevel: country.173*** -.192*** -.178*** (16) Multilevel: country + industry.158*** -.168*** -.180*** ( ) (17) Multilevel: country + occupation.220*** -.294*** -.166*** (18) Multilevel: country + industry + occupation ( ).171*** -.258*** -.221*** (19) Standard errors clustered by.185*** -.185*** -.220*** industry ( ) (20) Standard errors clustered by.173*** -.192*** -.178* occupation (21) Immigration: culture.112*** -.258*** (22) Immigration: better place.101*** -.196*** (23) Immigrants: same race.037** -.076*** -.037*** (24) Immigrants: different race.045*** -.097*** -.022* (25) Immigrants: poorer countries.022*** -.087*** (26) Attitudes toward redistribution.083*** -.056*** -.132*** attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/

14 CONCLUSIONS 1. Labour market risks and prospects at the occupational level have a robust association with immigration attitudes 2. Workers in occupations with many routine tasks are more antiimmigrant 3. Workers in offshorable occupations are more pro-immigrant 4. Conditional effect of exposure to global economy: the differences between low-routine and high-routine workers increase 5. Seeds for political polarization between globalization winners and those, whose relative (but not absolute) status declines? attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/

15 CAVEATS At this point we do not control immigration flows, comparative advantage or whether a person works in tradable or non-tradable sector Indexes do not account for temporal changes in occupational characteristics Selection bias in choosing occupation attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/

16 APPENDIX: PREVIOUS STUDIES How labour market risks and prospects affect attitudes toward trade, social protection and immigration? Some recent findings: Owen and Johnston (2017): Occupational characteristics are a key determinant that affects workers trade preferences Walter (2017): Exposure to global economy conditions how much labour market risks affect individuals experience and their demand for social protection Dancygier & Walter (2015): Low-skilled individuals tend to unite on critical issues surrounding globalization Geraci et al. (2017): Labour market risks (technological change and trade) increase anti-migrant attitudes (causal inference) attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/

17 APPENDIX: JOB POLARIZATION (ISCO 88) (ISCO 08) Growth = Professionals; Technicians and Associate Professionals Decline = Skilled Agricultural; Craft and related trades; Plant and machine operators attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/

18 APPENDIX: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS Variables Observations Mean or % Std. Dev. Min Max Immigration good or bad for economy Routine task index Offshorable Age Gender Not a minority group Education Income (decile) Satisfied with the economy Trust in people Income insecurity attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/

19 THANK YOU! Antti Kaihovaara & Zhen Im attitudes IPES Conference at MIT. 29/10/