The short- and medium-term distributional effects of the German minimum wage reform

This study quantifies the distributional effects of the minimum wage introduced in Germany in 2015. Using detailed Socio-Economic Panel survey data, we assess changes in the hourly wages, working hours, and monthly wages of employees who were entitled to be paid the minimum wage. We employ a difference-in-differences analysis, exploiting regional variation in the “bite” of the minimum wage. At the bottom of the hourly wage distribution, we document wage growth of 9% in the short term and 21% in the medium term. At the same time, we find a reduction in working hours, such that the increase in hourly wages does not lead to a subortionate increase in monthly wages. We conclude that working hours adjustments play an important role in the distributional effects of minimum wages

Job tasks, wage formation and occupational mobility

Die drei Aufsätze dieser Dissertation liefern einen Beitrag zur empirischen Literatur bezüglich der Lohnbildung mit besonderem Fokus auf die Rolle von Arbeitsinhalten. Der erste Aufsatz analysiert das Lohngefälle zwischen Männern und Frauen in Hinblick auf die geschlechtspezifischen Tätigkeitsinhalte. Mit Hilfe eines neu zusammengestellten Datensatzes, der deutsche administrative Paneldaten mit individuellen Tätigkeitsinhalten kombiniert, wird der Zusammenhang zwischen ausgeübten Tätigkeiten und Löhnen sowie die Entstehung von Lohnunterschieden zwischen den Geschlechtern in Deutschland zwischen 1986 und 2004 geschätzt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sowohl Arbeitsinhalte, als auch deren Erträge geschlechtspezifisch sind. Außerdem tragen relative Preise für Tätigkeitseinheiten wesentlich zur Entwicklung des Lohngefälles zwischen den Geschlechtern bei, wobei sich Heterogenitäten entlang der Lohnverteilung zeigen. Der zweite Aufsatz beschäftigt sich mit der strukturellen Veränderung in der Nachfrage nach unterschiedlichen Berufsgruppen und nutzt die deutsche Wiedervereiningung als Quasi-Experiment. Die Berücksichtigung der Charakteristiken der Nachfrage nach bestimmten Berufen ermöglicht die Schätzung des kausalen Effekts eines erzwungenen Berufswechsels auf Löhne. Der abschließende Aufsatz fokussiert sich auf die Veränderungen der Arbeitsinhalte und deren Relation zu Individuallöhnen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Lohndifferenziale bei einem Berufswechsel stark mit der Ähnlichkeit der Inhalte zwischen dem Ausgangs- und Zielberuf zusammenhängen. Außerdem liefert dieser Aufsatz neue Evidenz hinsichtlich der positiven Relation zwischen den sich verändernden Arbeitsinhalten und den Löhnen von Arbeitnehmern, die keinen Berufswechsel erleben. Dieses Ergebnis zeigt, dass wachsende Kompetenz in Tätigkeiten einen Teil des positiven Zusammenhanges zwischen Löhnen und der Dauer des Beschäftigungsverhältnisses erklärt.This thesis consists of three essays that contribute to the empirical literature on wage formation regarding job contents. The first essay analyzes the formation and the closing of the gender pay gap with respect to gender-specific task inputs in 1986-2004 in Germany. Using a newly constructed data set that combines administrative panel data on wages with individual-level task information, I am able to estimate the association of individual task profiles with wages and their contribution to the formation of the pay gap. The results document that task contents and returns to them are gender-specific. In particular, relative prices for task-specific units are substantially related to the formation of the wage gap, though the evidence exhibits heterogeneity along the wage distribution. The second essay is devoted to the shifts in the demand for occupations based on the quasi-experimental case of occupational demand shifts in East Germany after reunification. Taking the parameters of the demand for particular occupations into account helps to identify the causal effect of imposed occupational change on wages. The magnitude of the estimated wage effect is huge and persistent, though it points towards a positive selection of the group of employees who experienced an occupational change due to reunification. The third essay focuses on the changes of job contents and their relation to individual wages. The estimation results show that the wage differential due to an occupational change correlates significantly with the degree of similarity between the source and the target occupation. Moreover, the essay provides novel evidence on the positive relation of changing occupational contents with wages for employees who stay in their occupation, which implies that a part of the effect of tenure on wages is due to the increasing proficiency in job tasks

Time-Varying Occupational Contents

By analyzing occupational task profiles, an occupational change can be split up into two components: (1) transferability of task portfolios between occupations and (2) change in the value of the occupation-employee match. Extending the task-based approach of Gathmann and Schönberg (2009) by relaxing their assumption of time-invariant occupational contents, I estimate the association of dynamic aspects of occupational task portfolios with individual wages for medium-skilled German workers in 1991 and 1998. Estimated wage returns to the components of an occupational change generally differ in short and long run, as well as in East and West Germany. Wage returns to the changes of task porfolios for the occupational stayers are estimated to be positive

Changes in Occupational Demand Structure and their Impact on Individual Wages

This paper estimates wage losses arising due to changes in the structure of demand for occupations. The data on occupational changes made for the sake of adjustment to the changes in the demand structure come from the German reunification of 1990. Endogenous occupational changes are instrumented by the post-reunification demand properties of the occupation of the apprenticeship completed in the GDR. The IV computation reveals a negative wage effect of nearly 35 log points in 1991/92. This effect is persistent over time: after almost 10 years after reunification the negative wage effect associated with occupational changes due to the relocation of individual human capital across occupations is more than 20 log points

Flexibilität und Anpassungsfähigkeit von Beschäftigten mit dualer Berufsausbildung (Flexibility and adaptability of the employees with a dual vocational training degree)

"We examine the occupational and wage mobility of employees with a vocational training degree obtained in the German dual system of apprenticeship training. The conceptual framework is based on the human capital theory and the search theory under the assumption of variation in occupational contents over time. The regression analysis shows that occupational changes are positively correlated with individual wages. It provides evidence that the degree of correlation depends on the similarity between the content of occupation in which the individual was trained and the kind of occupation in which the individual was employed at the time of the survey. Further, it shows that the voluntariness of occupational change also contributes to the degree of correlation. We measure the similarity of occupational contents with the task-based approach. In contrast to the results for West Germany, occupational changes in East Germany after reunification are associated with wage penalties. This negative wage effect is persistent and can be observed even 10 years after the occupational change. The general results suggest that human capital which was accumulated during apprenticeship training, is transferable across different occupations." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))Ausbildungsabsolventen, berufliche Mobilität, Einkommenseffekte, erlernter Beruf, ausgeübter Beruf, Berufswechsel, regionaler Vergleich, Humankapitalansatz, Arbeitsplatzsuchtheorie, BIBB/IAB-Erhebung, Berufsverlauf, Ostdeutschland, Westdeutschland, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Künstliche Intelligenz in Deutschland: Erwerbstätige wissen oft nicht, dass sie mit KI-basierten Systemen arbeiten

Giering O, Fedorets A, Adriaans J, Kirchner S. Künstliche Intelligenz in Deutschland: Erwerbstätige wissen oft nicht, dass sie mit KI-basierten Systemen arbeiten. DIW Wochenbericht. 2021;88(48):783-789.Der Begriff der Künstlichen Intelligenz (KI) bleibt im Arbeitsalltag für Erwerbstätige oftmals undurchschaubar. Das zeigt eine Auswertung der Verbreitung von KI in der Arbeitswelt in Deutschland mithilfe des neuen Datenmoduls des SOEP-IS zum Thema Digitalisierung. Fragt man die Erwerbstätigen direkt nach der Nutzung von digitalen Systemen mit „Künstlicher Intelligenz“, geben rund 20 Prozent an, solche Systeme zu nutzen. Erfragt man die Nutzung dagegen indirekt, also ohne Nennung des Begriffs KI, geben fast doppelt so viele Personen an, täglich eine oder mehrere digitale Systeme mit entsprechenden Funktionen zu nutzen. Viele arbeiten demnach schon mit KI-basierten Systemen, ohne dies zu wissen. Das legt nahe, dass die aktuelle Debatte um befürchtete Arbeitsplatzverluste durch KI (Substitution) um Perspektiven der Zusammenarbeit (Kollaboration) zwischen Menschen und Maschinen erweitert werden muss. Tatsächlich erledigen derzeit viele Erwerbstätige bestimmte Tätigkeiten noch selbst, werden dabei aber (auch) von KI-basierten Systemen unterstützt. Damit möglichst viele Menschen vom technologischen Fortschritt in Deutschland profitieren und diesen mitgestalten können, sollten Weiterbildungen angeboten werden, die Wissen über KI vermitteln und nötige Fähigkeiten stärken

Artificial Intelligence in Germany: Employees Often Unaware They Are Working with AI-Based Systems

Giering O, Fedorets A, Adriaans J, Kirchner S. Artificial Intelligence in Germany: Employees Often Unaware They Are Working with AI-Based Systems. DIW Weekly Report. 2021;11(48):369-375.Using a new SOEP-IS data module on digitalization including information on the prevalence of AI use in the workplace, this report shows that the term “artificial intelligence” often remains inscrutable in the day-to-day work of many employees. When asked directly about the use of digital systems with the term “artificial intelligence,” around 20 percent of the working respondents in the sample indicate that they use such systems. When asked indirectly—without using the term AI—almost double the share of respondents indicate that they use at least one of these digital systems on a daily basis. Thus, many employees are already working with AI-based systems without knowing it. This suggests that the current debate about job displacement due to AI (substitution) needs to be expanded to include perspectives on collaboration between humans and machines. As of 2021, many employees still complete certain tasks themselves but also receive assistance from AI-based systems. Training should be offered for the workforce to gain knowledge about AI and strengthen their AI-related skills. With these measures, as many people as possible can shape technological progress in Germany and thus benefit from it

Data on Digital Transformation in the German Socio-Economic Panel

Fedorets A, Kirchner S, Adriaans J, Giering O. Data on Digital Transformation in the German Socio-Economic Panel. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik. 2021.**Abstract** Public debates and current research on “digitalization” suggest that digital technologies could profoundly transform the world of work. While broad claims are common in these debates, empirical evidence remains scarce. This calls for reliable data for empirical research and evidence-based policymaking. We implemented a data module in the Socio-Economic Panel to gather information on digitalization in three domains: artificial intelligence (AI), platform work, and digitalized workplace. This paper describes the existing approaches to measure technological exposure, the challenges in operationalization of digital transformation in a household survey, the implemented questionnaire items, and the research potential of this new data