The Distribution of Occupational Tasks in the United States: Implications for a Diverse and Aging Population

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how occupational tasks in the US vary by age, race, and gender, highlighting shifts over time and implications for policy and inequality among diverse and aging populations.

Contribution

It provides a detailed intersectional analysis of occupational task distribution and its changes from the early 2000s to late 2010s using O*NET and ACS data.

Findings

White men shift to cognitive tasks early in careers

Hispanic and Black men work in physically demanding jobs throughout

Routine manual tasks increased for older workers except Asians

Abstract

We document the age-race-gender intersectionality in the distribution of occupational tasks in the United States. We also investigate how the task content of work changed from the early-2000s to the late-2010s for different age-race/ethnicity-gender groups. Using the Occupation Information Network (O*NET) and pooled cross-sectional data from the American Community Survey (ACS) we examine how the tasks that workers perform vary with age and over time. We find that White men transition to occupations high in non-routine cognitive tasks early in their careers, whereas Hispanic and Black men work mostly in physically demanding jobs over their entire working lives. Routine manual tasks increased dramatically for 55-67 year-old workers, except for Asian men and women. Policymakers will soon be challenged by financial stress on entitlement programs, reforms could have disproportionate effects on gender and racial/ethnic groups due to inequality in the distribution of occupational tasks.