An enormous amount of literature has emerged over the last few years in the context of the “Future of Work”. Academics, think tanks and policy makers have fuelled rich discussions about how the future of work might look like and how we can shape it. Indeed, labour markets in developing and developed countries are likely to undergo major transformations in the next years and decades.

However, despite a growing body of research in this area, there exists no universally accepted definition of what exactly the “Future of Work” encompasses and what the most relevant drivers are. Accordingly, there is a vast variety of themes and methods covered by the literature on the Future of Work. Few papers cut across
a multidimensional analysis of the different potential drivers of change.

This literature review provides the first systematic and synoptic overview of topics discussed under the umbrella of the “Future of Work”. It not only highlights the trends of the most important drivers as discussed in existing studies, it also defines what the expected outcomes of the future of work might be. The review first devises a structure based on key labour market dimensions and then categorises findings from the literature
conditioned on such dimensions. It also contains an assessment on the coverage of the studies on the
future of work and perceived limitations and thematic gaps.

The literature review is structured around the five dimensions presented in the introduction and
organised as follows.

Section 2.1 presents the reader with scenarios for the future of jobs along two subsections: Firstly, it discusses labour force developments and how global labour force participation might evolve in the future. Secondly, jobs and unemployment summarises debates on job destruction and job creation focusing on shifts in technology and structural change resulting from greening the economy.

Section 2.2 introduces the quality of jobs – touching on, but not limited to, discussions on new forms of employment and how they might affect working condition in the future.

Section 2.3 incorporates the future of social protection, covering sustainability issues stemming from several factors such as ageing populations and new forms of employment.

Section 2.4, in turn, highlights how future wage and income distributions across households might develop taking into account a range of determinants.

Finally, section 2.5 discusses current trends in industrial relations and social dialogue and how such entities can be expected to respond to the dynamic changes contained within the future of work.