Journal Article

This paper describes the Occupational Information Network (O*NET), a relatively recent database containing measures of occupational characteristics produced by the United States Department of Labor as a replacement for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. O*NET scores cover cognitive, interpersonal, and physical skill requirements, as well as working conditions, and are derived mostly from survey responses of large, representative samples of workers. O*NET's substantive scope and sampling are impressive, but there are also significant gaps and duplication in content. Underlying constructs, item wording, and response options are often vague or overly complex. However, O*NET items have generally sensible correlations with wages, which, along with the richness of the database, ensure O*NET's place among researchers interested in work and labour markets.

The objective of the study is to estimate the extent of pay discrimination against persons with a disability in Canada. The methodology involves decomposing or partitioning the pay gap between persons with disabilities and a comparison group of persons without disabilities into a portion due to differences in the pay-determining characteristics and a portion due to the differences in pay when they have the same characteristics - commonly attributed to discrimination. In this study, we further control for differences in performance by restricting the analysis to persons with a disability that does not limit their performance at work. The data is from the 2006 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey linked to the 2006 Census. We find that persons with a disability that does not affect their performance at work are still paid about 10% less than a comparison group with no disability but with the same pay-determining characteristics.

The paper argues that: (1) the demise of 'occupational' and 'internal' and the spread of 'external' labour markets in growth areas of UK economy such as the creative and cultural sector, coupled with the massification of higher education which has created a new type of post-degree 'vocational need', means that the transition from education to work should be re-thought as the development of vocational practice rather than the acquisition of qualifications; and (2) in order to re-think transition as the development of vocational practice it is necessary to eviscerate the legacy of the 'traditional' conception of practice in UK educational policy. The paper reviews a number of alternative social scientific conceptions of practice, formulates more multi-faceted conceptions of vocational practice, and discusses their implications for UK and EU educational policy.

In the increasingly global world, skills in cultural competence now form part of the minimum standards of practice required for allied health professionals. During an international work-integrated learning (WIL) placement, allied health students' cultural competence is expected to be enhanced. The present study scrutinized reflective journals of students who completed an international WIL placement to identify themes related to student learning. A retrospective content analysis identified three core themes with sub-themes: Cultural Competence with three subthemes: cultural egocentricity and cultural adjustment, cultural conflict in dealing with disability (not resolved over time) and, communication and language barriers; Professional Development with two subthemes: the evolution of evaluating success and impact on future practice, and Personal Growth with two subthemes: newfound reality - constant self-discovery and social responsibility. These themes provide guidance for academics in preparing students beforehand and the reflections during international WIL placements.

This paper uses direct measures of literacy to examine the influence of cognitive and unobserved skills on earnings. We find that cognitive skills contribute significantly to earnings and that their inclusion in earnings equations reduces the measured impact of schooling. The impact of literacy on earnings does not vary across quantiles of the earnings distribution, schooling and literacy do not interact in influencing earnings, and introducing literacy has little effect on the estimated impact of experience. Our findings suggest that cognitive and unobserved skills are both productive but that having more of one skill does not enhance the other's productivity.

This paper investigates the impact of computer usage at work and other job features on the changing skills required of workers. It compare skills utilization in Britain at three data points: 1986, 1992 and 1997, using proxies for the level of skills actually used in jobs. This study questions the validity of investigating the facts about, and the sources of, rising skills by using just educational attainment or occupational grouping data. This paper finds that: ¢ Job skills have increased, more quickly for women than for men; these increases are more extensive than those captured by changes in the occupational class structure. ¢ The spread of computer usage is very strongly associated with the process of upskilling, and accounts in part for narrowing of the gender skills gap; expanded use of quality circles is also linked to upskilling. Evidence for any direct role of trade in inducing skills increases is weak. ¢ Using the qualification held or occupation as a skills measure can lead to erroneous conclusions as to the origin of skills changes.

This paper shows that the United Kingdom since 1975 has exhibited a pattern of job polarization with rises in employment shares in the highest- and lowest-wage occupations. This is not entirely consistent with the idea of skill-biased technical change as a hypothesis about the impact of technology on the labor market. We argue that the “routinization” hypothesis recently proposed by Autor, Levy, and Murnane (2003) is a better explanation of job polarization, though other factors may also be important. We show that job polarization can explain one-third of the rise in the log(50/10) wage differential and one-half of the rise in the log(90/50).

We follow female college graduates in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and compare the trajectories of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related occupations to other professional occupations. Results show that women in STEM occupations are significantly more likely to leave their occupational field than professional women, especially early in their career, while few women in either group leave jobs to exit the labor force. Family factors cannot account for the differential loss of STEM workers compared to other professional workers. Few differences in job characteristics emerge either, so these cannot account for the disproportionate loss of STEM workers. What does emerge is that investments and job rewards that generally stimulate field commitment, such as advanced training and high job satisfaction, fail to build commitment among women in STEM.

We examine how susceptible jobs are to computerisation. To assess this, we begin by implementing a novel methodology to estimate the probability of computerisation for 702 detailed occupations, using a Gaussian process classifier. Based on these estimates, we examine expected impacts of future computerisation on US labour market outcomes, with the primary objective of analysing the number of jobs at risk and the relationship between an occupations probability of computerisation, wages and educational attainment.