Issue Polarising employment structure and widening income and asset gaps

Summary

The survey traces a rapid polarisation of employment to segmented labour markets and flexibilisation reforms, now compounded by information concentration and the spread of platform work. Automation is pushing apart the wages of high-skill, high-income occupations and those of low-skill, low-income ones. Because access to asset markets is also unequal, income inequality and wealth inequality end up amplifying each other. Young people, non-regular employees and platform workers fall into widening gaps in social insurance, while training and active labour-market policy lag behind the speed of change. The panel warns that deeper polarisation breeds insecurity, a gap in hope and political conflict, undermining the social cohesion that democracy and stable long-run growth depend on.