The green

Transition Is Creating A Great Green Job Divide Between Regions

While the green transition is a global megatrend, its labour market impact is inherently local. The risks and opportunities for workers are not the same across communities, often concentrated in specific places. Regions relying on high-emission sectors are more likely to face the disappearance of jobs due to green policies. Economic opportunities and green job creation will also not materialise equally everywhere.

Overall, around 18% of workers in the OECD have jobs with a significant share of green tasks that directly help improve environmental

Share of green jobs across regions

sustainability or reducing greenhouse gas emission. However, the share of those “green-task” jobs differs widely across regions. It ranges from 7% in some regions to around 30% in metropolitan regions such as Stockholm, Paris and Vilnius. Some regions are at the forefront of the green transition–they already have a high and increasing share of green-task jobs and a low share of “polluting” jobs at risk of disappearing. Other regions with above-average risk of job displacement have not yet managed to capture the benefits of the green transition.

In most countries, capital regions have been leading the way in green job creation thus far. They tend not only to have greener, but also less polluting, labour markets. In 19 out of 25 countries with data for multiple regions, the capital region has the highest share of green jobs in the country. On average, the share of green jobs is 4 percentage points higher in capital regions than in the rest of their respective country, while the share of polluting jobs is almost 7 percentage points lower. For example, the share of green-task jobs in Ile-de-France (which includes Paris) is 30% compared to 22% in the rest of France, and the shares of polluting jobs are 10% and 16% respectively.

Capital regions stand out with more green-task and fewer polluting jobs

The change in the geography of jobs in the green transition could widen regional economic disparities. Within countries, regions with a higher share of polluting jobs tend to have significantly lower GDP per capita. Since polluting jobs face a higher risk of displacement, those regions might experience greater job losses than more affluent regions and a reduction in economic activity, which could lead to further economic divergence across regions in OECD countries.

Empowering women to power the green transition

Women are significantly under-represented in green-task jobs in local labour markets. More than two-thirds of green-task jobs (72%) are held by men and less than one-third (28%) by women. There is not a single region across 30 OECD countries with gender parity in green jobs. More can and must be done to attract women into greentask jobs to accelerate the green transition in the race to reach net zero by 2050.

Gender disparities also exist in polluting jobs. Men face a higher risk of displacement in the green transition because they also do most of the polluting jobs. On average, men face a higher risk of displacement caused by the green transition, with 83% of polluting jobs held by men.

Women are significantly under-represented in green-task jobs

Non-green jobs Green jobs

What is driving the green gender divide?

Women are significantly underrepresented in the occupations that matter for the green transition. For example, in engineering professions (physical and engineering science technicians, engineering professionals), which are among the most common green jobs, women constitute less than 1 in 4 workers. Women also rarely work in construction, which plays an important role for the green transition.

The fields of study in higher education still reveal a gender bias. More than half of green workers hold a degree in one of three fields: engineering (23%), business and administration (22%), and architecture and construction (11%). However, only 8% of workers with an engineering background are female, and in architecture and construction the share of women is only 15%.

Gender divergence starts from a young age. Despite girls routinely performing well on science and maths at school, they are less likely than boys to aspire a career in STEM-related occupations. At the age of 15, boys are already twice as likely to expect to work in a green job as girls (21% and 10%, respectively). For example, while a similar share of girls and boys aspire to be architects, boys are over four times more likely than girls to indicate engineering as their profession of choice. Gender norms contribute to girls perceiving STEM subjects negatively.

Source: Eurostat (2021), Labour Force Survey.

Left unchecked, the green transition could deepen economic and social divides within countries for decades

The green transition also risks widening the gap between workers. So far, the majority of workers in green-task jobs are highly educated and have higher levels of skills. More than half of workers in green jobs have completed higher education, compared to about one-third of those in non-green jobs.

High

Future green jobs might shift towards medium- and low-skilled occupations, in activities such as waste management, retrofitting or construction. However, today the workers in green jobs tend to be more highskilled and more highly educated compared to non-green jobs and, in particular, polluting jobs.

Workers in greater need of reskilling are less likely to participate in training. Continuous education and adult learning are vital tools for managing labour market transformations such as the green transition. They provide workers the training they need to up- and reskill or to move into a new occupation or sector. However, individuals that work in polluting jobs have significantly lower training rates (12%) than other workers (20%). Across regions, there is also a misalignment of training needs and training participation. Regions that have less green labour markets record lower training participation among their workforce.