Check out an article interviewing Ljubica Nedelkoska and Frank Neffke
Nedelkoska and Neffke are the lead authors of the paper “Eight Decades of Changes in Occupational Tasks, Computerization and the Gender Pay Gap”, which won the 2023 DRUID Best Paper Award. This award is presented by DRUID, one of the largest conferences on innovation studies, innovation economics, and innovation management.
In an interview article published recently in Industry and Innovation, Nedelkoska and Nefke describe the fascinating stories that motivated their research. Together with colleagues from Harvard’s Growth Lab, they built a dataset of job tasks and technologies to study how technology changed the gender pay gap in the US since the 1940s.
Their findings paint a nuanced picture: computerization had two counteracting effects on the gender pay gap. By attracting more women to higher-paying occupations, it has narrowed the gap; on the other hand, it has widened it by increasing returns to computer use by men.
Nedelkoska and Neffke discuss their motivations and findings, and also reflect on future questions to explore. As well as sharing the “real life” backstage of the research, they emphasize the importance of teamwork and collaboration.
About the interview paper and paper
The interview article “A journey through time: the story behind ‘eight decades of changes in occupational tasks, computerization and the gender pay gap’”, by Leo Schmallenbach, was published in Industry and Innovation.
The paper “Eight Decades of Changes in Occupational Tasks, Computerization and the Gender Pay Gap”, was written by Ljubica Nedelkoska, Shreyas Gadgin Matha, James McNerney, Andre Assumpcao, Dario Diodato, and Frank Neffke.
