Abstract
In spite of the growing literature on polarization, relatively little is known about the individual-level patterns underlying the decline of routine occupations and its links with informal employment. To shed light on this, we examine the flows of formal and informal workers into and out of routine and non-routine occupations over the period 1980-2015 in Chile. Using rich longitudinal data from the Social Protection Survey of Chile, we first reconstruct individuals' occupational trajectories by classifying individuals into different states at a monthly frequency. We then use a series of multilevel competing risk event history models and a decomposition flow approach to study the flows underlying the decline of routine occupations. Our results suggest a process of displacement and occupational downgrading for routine manual workers: workers in routine manual formal employment become increasingly unemployed or use informality as a buffer against job loss, and workers in routine manual informal employment become unemployed or transit to non-routine manual informal occupations. By contrast, the cognitive component of tasks performed by routine cognitive workers seems to offer relatively more protection against job displacement and occupational downgrading. Lastly, we find that the decrease in the share of routine occupations in Chile is mostly due to an increase in the outflows transition rates to unemployment and informality and a decrease in the inflow transition rate from unemployment.