There is a long-standing economic research literature on the impact of technological innovation and automation in general on employment and economic growth. Traditional economic models trade off a negative displacement or substitution effect against a positive complementarity effect on...

This paper provides comprehensive cross-country evidence on the relationship between earnings inequality and intra-generational mobility by simulating individual earnings and employment trajectories in the long-term using short panel data for 24 OECD countries. On average across countries, about...

In most OECD countries, the gap between rich and poor is at its highest level since 30 years. Today, the richest 10 per cent of the population in the OECD area earn 9.5 times the income of the poorest 10 per cent; in the 1980s this ratio stood at 7:1 and has been rising continuously ever since....

As unemployment rates have reached historical lows across many OECD countries, it is important to focus on the economically inactive – that is people who are neither in a job nor seeking work. This paper reviews recent trends in economic inactivity across the OECD, focusing on places and...

Cognitive skills, such as reading and numeric skills, are key determinants of wages, employment and long-term economic growth. Good cognitive skills also reduce poverty risk and improve non-material wellbeing, such as health and social cohesion. Non-cognitive skills, such as skills to use...

This report asks what is happening to middle-skill workers. Driven by mega trends such as automation, ageing and offshoring, the share of jobs whose wages placed them firmly in the middle of the wage distribution has been declining. Termed job polarisation, economists have observed the decline...

This paper presents quantitative information on labour market flows for 25 OECD countries. It uses household surveys that offer the advantage of reporting monthly transitions between employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for individuals. Between 2005 and 2012, the annual probability...