The Future of Employment, Wages, and Technological Change
Title
The Future of Employment, Wages, and Technological Change
Author
Handel, Michael J.
Research Area
Social Institutions
Topic
Work and the Economy
Abstract
The United States and other advanced economies enjoyed a remarkable period of sustained growth and broadly‐shared prosperity from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. After a series of crises from the mid‐1970s to mid‐1980s the character of jobs and the structure of earnings changed markedly but the causes continue to be debated. Most workers' inflation‐adjusted wages have stagnated since the early 1980s, employment security has fallen, and inequality has grown. One set of explanations emphasizes structural and institutional forces, such as employment shifts from manufacturing to services, deunionization, import competition, declining value of the minimum wage, macroeconomic shocks, and changing wage norms. Others stress the interplay of the supply of and demand for human capital, citing rising returns to education and skills, which they attribute to the spread of computer technology. The debate has significant implications for understanding the likely course of future labor market trends.