OCCPOL – Dying Occupations and Political Change
Short description
Dying Occupations and Political Change (OCCPOL) investigates how the decline and disappearance of occupations shape political participation, opinions, and party choices in democracies. Occupations are more than sets of tasks. They are tied to identity, status, and how people understand their future. The project compares Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present, combining historical data, surveys, and text analysis. By learning from earlier periods of occupational change, OCCPOL will help us understand how current transformations, including automation and AI, may affect democratic politics.
Background
Work is changing rapidly. New technologies, automation, and artificial intelligence are expected to transform many occupations, and some may decline sharply or disappear altogether. This is not a new phenomenon. Modern democracies have experienced several major shifts in the world of work, from the disappearance of domestic servants and many agricultural and craft occupations to the decline of industrial and clerical work.
Purpose
OCCPOL studies what happens politically when occupations decline or disappear. The project starts from the idea that occupations are not only sources of income. They are also connected to identity, social status, community, and expectations about the future. When an occupation loses status or disappears, the political consequences may therefore reach beyond unemployment or wage loss.
Research design
The project compares Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. It will construct harmonized data on occupational decline and disappearance and link these data to evidence on political participation, political opinions, and party choices. The project combines historical census materials, labor force surveys, official registers, election surveys, electoral statistics, and political texts.
Historical and contemporary perspectives
The research follows occupational change across three broad periods: the breakthrough of democracy in the early twentieth century, the postwar decades, and the current period of automation, robotization, and artificial intelligence. This long perspective makes it possible to ask why occupational decline sometimes leads to protest and political discontent, while in other cases democratic institutions manage change in ways that people understand and accept.
Expected contribution
The project will create new data and develop a broader understanding of how changes in working life affect democratic politics. It will contribute to research on political behavior, political economy, and political history, and to public debates about the future of work.