Johan Westerman is a researcher who obtained his PhD in sociology from the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) in 2020. His dissertation, entitled Motives Matter, investigated the intrinsic motivation in work learning and labor market performance. His analytical approach is oriented towards a thorough understanding of (job) task involvement and within-career mobility processes. He currently studies the occupational structure and structural change in high-income countries, as well as the extent to which these factors shape labor market inequality in careers, wages and job attainment.
At the Institute for Future Studies, he runs the project Risk, Resources and Rewards at the Frontier of Labor Market Change. The project aims to analyze career trajectories and outcomes for workers in rapidly changing sectors of the economy. The project combines theoretical insights from typically separate perspectives in sociology and economics by analyzing risks, resources and rewards associated with careers in young and knowledge-intense firms. Factors predicting entry into such firms are analyzed as well as outcomes associated with such pathways. To what extent do these careers produce unfavorable personal outcomes, such as wage loss or career instability? How important are worker characteristics, such as a lack of relevant human capital, for transitions into rapidly changing sectors of the economy?
Westerman, J., Witteveen, D., Bihagen, E., & Shahbazian, R. (2023). Work life complexity no longer on the rise: trends among 1930s–1980s birth cohorts in Sweden. European Societies, 1–33.
Witteveen, D., & Westerman, J. (2023). Structural change shapes career mobility opportunities: an analysis of cohorts, gender and parental class. Work, Employment and Society, 37(1), 97–116.
Westerman, J., & Syk, E. (2023). Skills and structural change. A Research Agenda for Skills and Inequality, 51–63.
Korpi, T., Tåhlin, M., & Westerman, J. (2023). Skills and macro-level economic inequality. A Research Agenda for Skills and Inequality (pp. 289–304). Edward Elgar Publishing.
