Title: Globalization and Inequality: Sharing Wealth One of Greatest Challenges
Headings: Globalization and Inequality: Sharing Wealth One of Society’s Greatest Challenges
Globalization and Inequality: Sharing Wealth One of Society’s Greatest Challenges
Why is Inequality Increasing?
Changing Employment
Regional Inequality
William R. Hauk

Content: These two forces can widen the wage gap between high-skilled and low-skilled workers. Technological change can also potentially increase wage inequality. Fewer secretaries, typists, or assembly-line workers are needed if computers and automation replace them in the production process. Conversely, newer technology can increase the demand for the services of, say, engineers who can service those machines. While the two explanations are not mutually exclusive, for a long time, many economists tended to favor the technological explanation. If the trade was the stronger component of the story, then we would expect high-skill intensive industries to get bigger, while less-skill intensive industries got smaller. High-tech industries would expand as they serviced export markets. Older manufacturing industries, such as textiles, would disappear in the face of imports. Changing Employment
While this story does explain some of what has happened to the U.S. economy, the evidence is that employment in the U.S. has changed more within sectors than across sectors. Instead of some sectors employing more workers while others employed less, each sector tended to change the composition of their workforce in the direction of more skilled workers.