Declining Occupations and Career Outcomes in the United States
This strikes me as somewhat less of a problem than I might have thought: We study long-run career consequences of initial employment in an occupation that subsequently declines. Linking the 2000 Decennial Census to US administrative employment and earnings records through 2020, we follow more than 2.4 million workers. Employment in an occupation that contracts […] The post Declining Occupations…
A new study explores the long-term career consequences of initially working in occupations that have since declined. By linking the 2000 Decennial Census to US administrative employment and earnings records through 2020, researchers tracked over 2.4 million workers. Contractions of at least 25 percent in an occupation were linked to about 5 percent lower cumulative earnings, even though workers worked slightly more quarters overall.
This earnings differential aligns with evidence from Sweden and Norway, despite differences in how employment adjustments occur. While occupational mobility exists, it is not entirely complete. Interestingly, children's later occupational choices are not strongly tied to their parents' 2000 occupational-growth categories. These findings, presented in a new NBER working paper by Erling Barth, Maria Forthun Hoen, Sari Pekkala Kerr, and William R. Kerr, may have implications for the impact of AI on future occupations.
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