Book Chapter
Global divergence in the de-routinization of jobs

We establish new stylized facts about the global evolution and distribution of routine and non-routine work, relaxing the common assumption that occupations are identical globally. We combine survey data and regression models to predict the country-specific routine-task intensity of occupations in 87 countries employing over 2.5 billion workers, equivalent to 75 per cent of global employment. From 2000 to 2017, the shift away from routine work was much slower in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries, widening gaps in the nature of work. Low- and middle-income countries remained the dominant provider of routine work. Not accounting for differences in occupation-specific job tasks across countries leads to a significant overestimation of the role of non-routine tasks in less developed countries.