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Vertical differentiation of work tasks: conceptual and measurement issues

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Abstract

This paper contains an overview of conceptual and measurement issues related to the vertical differentiation of work tasks. The main conclusions — based on a synthetic literature review and measurement examples from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (LNU) and the European Social Survey (ESS) — are as follows. First, job complexity is the main dimension of the vertical variation in work content. A large number of empirical studies in several disciplines converge on this conclusion. Productivity appears to be the driving mechanism of the tight link between job complexity and rewards. Second, time-based measures of job complexity (skill requirements) work well. By now there are well-established indicators of educational requirements and initial on-the-job learning, with good measurement properties. However, more work is needed on indicators of continuing on-the-job learning (both formal and informal). Finally, horizontal — as opposed to vertical — variation in work content is well captured by the distinction between working with people, data and things (PDT). Broad task indicators of PDT are now included in the LNU and ESS surveys. Relations between vertical (job complexity) and horizontal (task variation within complexity levels) dimensions of work content are important issues to be examined in future research based on these and other data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Michael Tåhlin

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  1. Michael Tåhlin
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Correspondence to Michael Tåhlin.

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Acknowledgements: An early version of this paper was presented at the T.A.S.K.S workshop, Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, 17–18 May 2010. Thanks to the workshop participants, in particular Francis Green, Michael Handel and Daniela Rohrbach-Schmidt, as well as to Carl le Grand, Martin Hällsten, Tomas Korpi, Ryszard Szulkin, Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

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Tåhlin, M. Vertical differentiation of work tasks: conceptual and measurement issues. Empirical Res Voc Ed Train 3, 55–70 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03546498

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