Global trends in precarious and unequal work: Some good news, much bad news

• In Event: Regulation and Precarious Work

Abstract

This draft chapter from a book-in-progress on the future of work provides a global overview of trends in labor precarity and inequality. At a global level, trends are mixed. On the positive side, many countries have transitioned out of poverty, and gender gaps have narrowed globally. The list of negatives is much longer: a declining labor share of income across much of the world, falling union density, growing within-country inequality, precaritization of many previously sheltered groups of workers, and widespread intensification of work. Global migration, which complicates the picture, seems likely to continue. Looking to the future, neoliberalism seems firmly entrenched, but there are encouraging signs of new fronts of resistance to inequality and precarity.

Author

• Chris Tilly, University of California-Los Angeles