Structural labour market change and family formation

Venue: Corvinus University, Building C (Közraktár utca 4-6), Room C.510 

Date and Time: 12 June 2023, 11.00 

Language: English 

Technology and globalisation have led to substantial structural changes in the labour markets in advanced economies. On the one hand, we are now more flexible in where, how and when we work. On the other hand, work has become more demanding. Workers have to constantly adjust to the new ways of working and update their skills in order to meet the changes in the labour demand. 

In particular, the introduction of labour replacing technologies, such as industrial robots and recently also development of the AI, threaten employment opportunities of many workers, increasing inequalities in access to paid work, earnings and occupational prestige. These labour market developments may also have important repercussions on workers’ ability to form a family and have children as they substantially alter the conditions of earning income and combining paid work and care. 

In this talk I will outline the most important features of the structural labour market change and present snapshots of studies on its impact on family formation of Europeans, conducted within the ERC-funded project “Globalisation- and Technology-Driven Labour Market Change and Fertility” (LABFER). 

Anna Matysiak is a demographer and economist with a special interest in the interrelationships between family dynamics and transformations in the labour markets, men’s and women’s employment, gender relations, family and employment policies and quality of life. She joined University of Warsaw in 2019 where she is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economic Sciences and heads the Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam). She is also a PI of the ERC Consolidator Grant “Globalization- and Technology-Driven Labour Market Change and Fertility” (LABFER).