计算机作为垫脚石？技术变革与劳动力市场机会平等

Journal of Labor Economics · 2023 · [{"name": "Melanie Arntz", "affiliation": ["Centre for European Economic Research", "Utrecht University", "Heidelberg University"]}, {"name": "Cäcilia Lipowski", "affiliation": ["Centre for European Economic Research", "Utrecht University", "Heidelberg University"]}, {"name": "Guido Neidhöfer", "affiliation": ["Centre for European Economic Research", "Utrecht University", "Heidelberg University"]}, {"name": "Ulrich Zierahn", "affiliation": ["Centre for European Economic Research", "Utrecht University", "Heidelberg University"]}]

中文摘要

本文分析技术变革是否通过提高技能回报相对于父母背景回报的水平，改善劳动力市场机会平等。我们发现，在20世纪90年代的德国，计算机技术的引入改善了父母受教育程度较低的工人进入采用技术型职业的机会，并降低了他们在这些职业中的工资惩罚。我们还表明，这显著促成了这一时期内来自不利父母背景的工人所经历的整体工资惩罚的下降。竞争性机制，如特定技能的劳动供给冲击和技能升级，无法解释这些发现。

Abstract

This paper analyzes whether technological change improves equality of labor market opportunities by increasing the returns to skills relative to the returns to parental background. We find that in Germany during the 1990s, the introduction of computer technologies improved the access to technology-adopting occupations for workers with low-educated parents and reduced their wage penalty within these occupations. We also show that this significantly contributed to a decline in the overall wage penalty experienced by workers from disadvantaged parental backgrounds over this time period. Competing mechanisms, such as skill-specific labor supply shocks and skill upgrading, do not explain these findings.