Michael J. Handel

Putting Tasks to the Test: Human Capital, Job Tasks and Wages

Using original, representative survey data, we document that analytical, routine, and manual job tasks can be measured with high validity, vary substantially within and between occupations, are significantly related to workers’ characteristics, and are robustly predictive of wage differences between occupations and among workers in the same occupation. We offer a conceptual framework that makes explicit the causal links between human capital endowments, occupational assignment, job tasks, and wages, which motivate a Roy model of the allocation of workers to occupations. We offer two simple tests of the model’s gross predictions for the relationship between tasks and wages, both of which receive qualified empirical support.

Trends in Perceived Job Quality, 1989 to 1998

There is significant controversy over recent trends in the material and intrinsic quality of jobs. Neo-Fordist theories argue that material conditions such as pay, job security, promotion opportunities, and effort requirements have deteriorated for most of the workforce. Post-Fordist theories argue that new work systems are raising levels of intrinsic rewards such as job challenge, autonomy, and cooperation and are also offering higher wages. This article tests both theories using repeated cross-sectional data from the General Social Survey. Results suggest workers’ perceptions of the quality of their jobs remained remarkably stable on most dimensions. It is possible that this reflects various obstacles to recognizing objective changes such as flexible standards of evaluation. But stability may indicate that both schools of thought overestimate the extent of recent changes.

Theories of lean management: An empirical evaluation

Debates within organization theory traditionally argued the relative merits of bureaucracy but today there is broad agreement across different perspectives that bureaucratic organization is inefficient and outmoded. Despite their differences, post-bureaucratic and neo-liberal theories argue that organizations with relatively flat hierarchies and low management overhead are better adapted to current market requirements. Post-bureaucratic theory also argues that employees, as well as firms, benefit from leaner management structures. This paper investigates trends in managerial leanness, proposed explanations for such trends, and the consequences of leanness for firms and employees. Although there is a trend toward flatter management hierarchies, there is only weak support for current claims regarding both the causes and consequences of lean management.

Trends in Direct Measures of Job Skill Requirements

It is commonly assumed that jobs in the United States require ever greater levels of skill and, more strongly, that this trend is accelerating as a result of the diffusion of information technology. This has led to substantial concern over the possibility of a growing mismatch between the skills workers possess and the skills employers demand, reflected in debates over the need for education reform and the causes of the growth in earnings inequality. However, efforts to measure trends have been hampered by the lack of direct measures of job skill requirements. This paper uses previously unexamined measures from the Quality of Employment Surveys and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine trends in job education and training requirements and provide a validation tool for skill measures in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, whose quality has long been subject to question. Results indicate that job skill requirements have increased steadily over the 1970s-1990s but that there has been no acceleration in recent years that might explain the growth in earnings inequality. There is also no dramatic change in the number of workers who are undereducated. These results reinforce the conclusions of earlier work that reports of a growing skills mismatch are likely overdrawn.

Education and the Economy Revisited: How Schools Matter.

A Nation at Risk (NAR; National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) had a tremendous impact on what schools do and has since spawned other reforms that attest to the reports ongoing influence. Coming in the wake of a decade of economic stagnation and import pressures from overseas producers, the authors of NAR blamed these problems on schools. In this article, we show that there was little justification for this conclusion, then or now. Although education clearly plays a role in the economy, it is only one of many factors. We find little evidence that there is a large or growing mismatch between worker skills and employer demands. Moreover, the American work force and economy continue to be among the most productive in the world. We should improve our schools and our economy, but real improvement will only occur when their problems are correctly diagnosed.

Accounting for Mismatch in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

To stimulate economic advancement, low- and middle-income countries need well-educated and trained workforces to fill the types of skilled jobs that drive economic growth. Improving educational quality and attainment and providing better training are all rightly put forth as policy recommendations to leverage economic growth and job creation. However, new findings based on large scale surveys of adult skills fromthe World Bank Group’s STEP (Skills Toward Employment and Productivity) Skills Measurement Program suggest that many workers are over qualified for their current jobs (based on the education those jobs require). The results of this study suggest that countries may not reap as much benefit from their investments in quality education and training if weak job creation leaves workers’ skills under utilized. Most of the literature on mismatch focuses on higher-income countries and rates of over-education among college graduates. Accounting for Mismatch in Low- and Middle-Income Countries uses new STEP Skills Survey data from 12 low- and middle-income countries, representing a range of economic and educational and training climates, to better understand the scope and patterns of education and skills mismatch. STEP collects information not only on workers’ level of education and employment status, but also on the types,frequency, and durations of tasks they carry out at their jobs as well as some of the cognitive skills they use.The study also explores additional factors such as gender, health, career stage, and participation in the informal labor sector that may help explain the degree of mismatch rates. The study’s findings indicate thatover-education is common in low and middle income countries with both lower and higher rates of educational attainment. There is also evidence that over-educated tertiary workers do not use all of theirskills, potentially wasting valuable human capital and educational resources. Aimed at policy makers, business and education leaders, and employers, Accounting for Mismatch in Low- and Middle-Income Countries suggests that job growth must go hand-in-hand with investments in education and training.

The Effect of Participative Work Systems on Employee Earnings

In the last 20 years wage inequality in the United States has grown significantly. At the same time, the increased popularity of employee involvement or the so-called high-performance work practices seems to offer opportunities for more skilled, autonomous, and participatory work. For many, this is a positive alternative to low-wage jobs, though others suggest that such jobs may raise skill requirements sufficiently to leave many workers behind and thereby contribute to growing inequality. Yet others are more critical and view participatory work systems as merely a method of work intensification. This paper examines the impact of participative work systems on workers’ wages and generally finds modest evidence of significant effects.

Downsizing in America: Reality, Causes, and Consequences

knowledge-based economy requires a much higher proportion of highly skilled workers and creation of a “learning society” at work to survive in today’s competitive environment. Livingstone and Sawchuk argue that this discourse simply reflects the interests of a society’s most powerful economic groups, as corporate executives and managers are more likely to have their knowledge and skills institutionally certified and applied. The authors’ research questions the dominant discourse on learning and knowledge by documenting actual activities of working people. They base their findings on in-depth interviews with unionized workers and their families located in five diverse work settings. What they find is a workforce of “active learners” who usually face barriers—instead of opportunities—to applying much of their current skill and knowledge at work. Livingstone and Sawchuk argue that working people are actually more likely to be underemployed in their jobs rather than underqualified. Additionally, most current studies focus on the immediate needs of employers, and the dominant discourse ignores the process of informal learning. Discourse calls upon workers to become more active and motivated learners when, in actuality, they already are learning on their own without immediate formal opportunities to use their skills at work. The authors’ goal is to uncover the hidden components of workers’ knowledge. To do this, they create a framework that attempts to “untangle” current thinking that does not adequately address where informal learning takes place. First, they separate work and learning into categories or separate spheres. They argue that there are at least three spheres of work and four spheres of learning in economically advanced societies. Work includes paid employment, housework, and community volunteer work. The four spheres of learning include initial formal schooling, further or adult education, informal training, and self-directed informal learning. For example, they found that many assembly workers create informal networks to learn to use computers, despite having no employer encouragement. The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides the theoretical framework for examining “working-class learning.” Part Two contains five detailed case studies including a unionized auto plant, chemical plant, community college, small parts manufacturer, and a garment company. Part Three compares the case studies based on the spheres of work and learning. What emerges is active, self-motivated learning taking place in homes, in communities, and within work groups. Most of this learning remains invisible to the employer. They also address class differences in learning cultures and the effects of gender, race, and age on workers’ learning. This book is an excellent challenge to the claims of the “knowledge-based economy”: It uncovers the depth of learning that is taking place and how it tends to be hidden by the power structure of society. According to Hidden Knowledge, the barrier to new organizations of work continues to be management’s focus on control and refusal to recognize workers’ basic intelligence. This is a good addition to the debate on new work organizations and empowerment.

What Prognosis for Good Jobs? The US Medical Diagnostic Imaging Equipment Industry

The US diagnostic imaging equipment industry stands astride several of the most noteworthy trends in the current US economy. Diagnostic imaging equipment, which includes such machines as X-ray machines, CT (computed tomography) scanners, and MR (magnetic resonance) scanners, forms visual images of areas within the body for diagnostic purposes. Thus, although the diagnostic imaging equipment industry is a manufacturing industry, its fate is closely tied to the service sector — and specifically to health care. Diagnostic imaging has shared in the meteoric rise of health care spending over the last several decades. Now it shares the effects of managed care and other concerted efforts at health care cost containment.