The AxPo Research Agenda

AxPo Research Agenda 2027-2032: The Transformation of Labor

The purpose of AxPo’s research program is to bring together research in sociology, political science, economics, and history to study the transformation of labor.

While some question labor’s centrality in contemporary society—or even predict its eventual disappearance—it remains the cornerstone of market societies: the primary source of income, the dominant use of time, and a key determinant of social status. Yet labor is changing, as it always has. What seems new, however, is the accelerating pace of this transformation.

Digitization, which has profoundly reshaped routine jobs over the past thirty years—eliminating some, upskilling others—is now extending its reach to non-routine skilled jobs. With the AI revolution, a broad range of intellectual tasks can be automated at an unprecedented rate. AI stands to reshape not only employment levels but also the very content of work, the nature of skills, wage structures, and the foundational organization of labor: hierarchies, markets, and firms. If droids deliver on their promises, they could similarly disrupt non-routine unskilled jobs within years. Adaptation to climate change and the necessary greening of production are also reshaping large segments of the labor market, as brown jobs and tasks give way to green ones.

AI-fication and climate change, the defining challenges of our time, are not the only drivers of labor transformation. These forces are not just technological but also organizational, political, and ideological. The shareholder revolution, for instance, has gradually replaced the diversified, multidivisional firm with a model of lean firms focused on “core” functions. Non-core tasks are increasingly subcontracted, franchised, or outsourced. Platform firms push this fissuring of organizations further, turning each worker into a subordinated, outsourced, self-employed entity. While the divergence between small and large firms has long been a feature of capitalist economies, the increasing returns to scale in network-related markets—coupled with a lack of political will and power to enforce competition—have given rise to “superstar” firms. These firms dominate not only long global chains of subordinate firms and workers but also, increasingly, society and politics.

As work itself becomes more fragmented, polarized, and segregated in this context, the questions of workers’ mobilization, labor conflicts, and collective negotiations must be analyzed anew. Although unionization and labor conflicts have regularly declined in high-income economies over the last few decades, this does not mean that the wage-labor relationship is solely governed by individual market adjustments. For example, in the context of post-Covid tight labor markets, strikes suddenly resumed and led to substantial pay hikes. However, worker mobilization is now certainly more volatile and eclectic. Workers explore alternative channels, such as judicialization, outside the traditional working-class repertoire and develop beneath and beyond classical labor institutions. Even without formal organization or representation, groups of workers—such as migrant workers, female workers, managers, and professional teams—make claims on the share of firms’ value-added and use their collective power to defend their interests.

The transformation of labor and the destabilization of work-related statuses and identities also raise significant societal and political challenges. Growing workplace segregation could amplify the echo chamber effects driving current political polarization. The green transition, which dismantles once high-status brown jobs, along with technological threats to skills, status, and employment, may deepen the sense of being left behind—a feeling that fuels the rise of the radical right. Traditional social mobilization may now offer rewards that are too modest and unpredictable to sustain faith in collective action as a means of achieving social progress. As a result, social frustration may be redirected toward alternative targets, such as migrants and minorities. Thus, the transformation of labor is central to understanding today’s social and political polarization.

The AxPo observatory will serve as a platform for coordinating research on the transformation of labor conducted within Sciences Po’s various research centers. Additionally, AxPo will promote new research through ambitious postdoctoral and visiting scholar programs, as detailed throughout these webpages.