The new economy, labour market inequalities and the work life balance

TL;DRAbstract

The ‘new economy’ is a concept that has rapidly entered academic and media discourse in the last few years. Although it is widely used, it has acquired several different meanings with differing understandings of the economy, the labour market, and social welfare. Optimistically, the term has been used to refer to the unprecedented coexistence of economic growth and a booming stock market with low inflation, tight labour markets and low wage pressures (Greenspan, 1998). More substantively, it has been used to depict ‘a new technological paradigm centred around micro electronicsbased information/communication technologies, and genetic engineering’ (Castells, 2000: 9). The development of the Internet, in particular, is said to have profound implications for the organisation of economic activity and for increasing productivity. Other analyses are more circumspect, and focus on the changing character of work associated with technological change, deregulation and globalisation (Sennett, 1998

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