Occupational Tasks in the German Labour Market

Abstract

"In recent times, the concept of tasks increasingly arises in the literature. Tasks defined as occupational tasks that individuals have to perform get more and more important in analysing different research questions. The most common application is the task-based approach (Autor/Levy/Murnane 2003) that explains rising wage inequality in many industrialised countries by changing tasks. However, the distinction between analytical/interactive and manual non-routine tasks as well as cognitive and manual routine tasks also provides a basic concept for further research on tasks like a task-based analysis of occupational segmentation of the labour market or occupational mobility.<br> In contrast to the existing task operationalisations in Germany that are based on survey data, we use - following the approach in the U.S. - expert knowledge about competencies and skills - that are usually required for performing an occupation. Based on an expert database (BERUFENET of the German Federal Employment Agency), we provide an alternative task operationalisation for Germany and calculate the main task type and the composition of tasks for different occupational classifications (German Classification of Occupations 1988 and German Classification of Occupations 2010) and for different classification levels (2-digit- and 3-digit-codes). In this paper, we describe our procedure and provide first descriptive results on the validity of our new task operationalisation." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Dengler, K., Matthes, B. & Paulus, W. (2014): Occupational Tasks in the German Labour Market. An alternative measurement on the basis of an expert database. (FDZ-Methodenreport 12/2014 (en)), Nürnberg, 36 p.