would place a greater emphasis on lifelong learning and retraining over the working life. Although trends in job tenure suggest stable or rising tenure for the workforce in the past decade, workers may still experience a need to acquire new skills to perform the same job or to advance to another job with the same employer. The report also predicted that in tight labor markets, employers will adopt approaches to accommodate more elderly, women, and disabled in the workforce. While there are protections in place for disabled workers, evidence on actual accommodations provided appears to be mixed.
The report asserted that wage dispersion would continue to widen, as technological change and globalization (among other drivers of rising wage disparities) created both winners and losers. A recent RAND report summarizing the trends on this front concludes that this is absolutely the case. In particular, median real wages for full-time male employees have been stagnant since the 1980s, while real wages at the bottom of the distribution have declined.
Much remains to be done on the policy front to address the challenges raised by the evolving trends. The slower growth of the labor force could be addressed by accommodating disabled workers and those transitioning to full retirement, as well as increasing subsidies for child-care and early learning programs so more parents with young children can work. Comprehensive immigration reform focused on increasing the skill mix of working-age immigrants is also important for addressing supply shortages. Institutions need to respond to the changing nature of employer-employee relationships and ensure portability of benefits such as healthcare and retirement saving vehicles. The Affordable Care Act and “secure choice” retirement initiatives in a few states are steps in the right direction.
The prospects for continued upgrading of skill requirements and global competition across a wide range of industries and occupations requires ensuring that the country's youth are receiving education and training relevant for the technology-driven global economy. To address the growing inequality in the workforce, training and other forms of transitional support for those of working-age who have lost from globalization and technological change is essential.
It is hard to imagine a stable scenario of growth and prosperity unless the issue of an uneven sharing of gains from the trends of demographic change, technological change, and globalization is addressed. Later blog posts in this series will delve deeper into the broad trends and challenges identified here, and the policy responses to address them.
Lynn Karoly is a senior economist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and Krishna Kumar is a senior economist at RAND and the director of its Labor and Population division.
Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.