Division of Labor

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Division of Labor
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Division of laborbasic concepts

• Specialization
• Employment, unemployment and underemployment
• Formal and informal work
• Paid and unpaid work
• Social reproduction and the social wage

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Information economy labor markets

• Automation of some routine tasks
• Some labor intensive service work
• Decline in demand for unskilled labor
• Rise in demand for interaction information and
  knowledge work

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Categorizing New Division of Labor

• Robert Reich (1991), The Work of Nations
• Symbolic analysts (20)
• Routine production (25)
• In-person service workers (30)
• Government, extractive industries, etc.
• Herzenberg, et al (1998) New Rules for New
  Economy
• Professional (40 and growing)
• Semi-Autonomous (30 and shrinking)
• Routinized (5 and shrinking)
• Labor-Intensive (25 and shrinking)

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Outcomes for workers

• Stagnant/declining wages
• Hourglass employment structure
• Volatile employment
• Growing insecurity

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Source Left Business Observer analysis of BLS
wage data. http//www.panix.com/dhenwood/Stats_ea
rns.html
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Take-home messages

• Division of labor contributes to differential
  (unequal) access to livelihoods
• Information economy seems to be leading to more
  unequal division of labor
• Key questions What is the nature of that
  growing inequality? Polarization? Social
  marginalization?