Job Polarization in Europe? Changes in the Employment Structure and Job Quality, 1995-2007

In recent years, a number of academic papers have argued that over the last couple of decades, technical change has had a polarizing impact on the employment structure of advanced capitalist economies with a relative expansion of jobs occupying the top and bottom of the wage/skills hierarchy and the middle shrinking. In this article, we present alternative evidence on the nature of change in European employment structures between 1995 and 2007, arguing that rather than a pervasive process of polarization there was a plurality of patterns of structural employment change across Europe. The broader theoretical implications of such findings are discussed.

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