Globalization does not affect all workers equally. The sector in which people work has a lot to do with it, but it is not the only factor. This is demonstrated by two studies led by Sergi Basco, professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Barcelona, in collaboration with Maxime Liégey, from the University of Strasbourg; Martí Mestieri, from the Institute for Economic Analysis (IAE-CSIC) and the Barcelona School of Economics, and Gabriel Smagghue, from the Bank of France.In the French case, the results are clear: those most exposed to competition from Chinese imports are professionals with highly specialized profiles, difficult to transfer to other fields, and who also work in sectors that are heavily regulated by collective bargaining agreements. Because of the similarity between France and Spain, this pattern also points to the Spanish labour market.
The debate is clear: how to maintain the benefits of international trade and, at the same time, reduce the inequalities it can cause?
To answer this question, researchers studied the trajectories of more than 163,000 workers in the French private sector between 1993 and 2015. The methodology combines administrative data and theoretical modelling. Interestingly, unlike other studies focusing only on sectors, this one analyses the specific type of job as a key element in explaining vulnerability to trade shocks such as the China shock, a sudden and intense rise in international competition driven by Chinese imports, which negatively affects workers' earnings in certain jobs.
The first article, published in the Journal of International Economics , even introduces an occupational exposure index to measure the extent to which each profession is more or less affected by the pressure of Chinese imports. The results show that profiles such as technicians or engineers are much more affected than other more transversal jobs, such as administrative jobs. The reason is that when production falls, these skilled professionals find it more difficult to move to other fields. The study concludes that cumulative wage losses due to occupational exposure are as large as those previously attributed to differences between sectors, which calls into question simplistic views based only on training or educational attainment.
