The Emergence of Knowledge Economies : Educational Expansion, Labor Market Changes, and the Politics of Social Investment

Abstract

This chapter traces the development of regional varieties of knowledge economies over the past two centuries from a global perspective. First, it shows massive educational expansion across all world regions, with a specific shift toward tertiary education and cognitive skills in the most advanced capitalist democracies. Second, focusing on the latter countries, it traces the relationship between educational expansion and labor market changes, showing that the trend toward advanced knowledge economies has coincided with a trend toward a “polarized upgrading” and feminization but underlines that occupational transformation varies across contexts (i.e., by welfare legacies). The chapter ends by discussing the implications of these changes for popular and economic demand for social investment policies and for the politics of social investment more generally. Increasing economic as well as societal demands for high-skilled labor shape the politics of social investment, by affecting the degree and kind of politicization of social investment as well as potential reform coalitions.