Economic restructuring

Economic restructuring is used to indicate changes in the constituent parts of an economy in a very general sense. In the western world, it is usually used to refer to the phenomenon of urban areas shifting from a manufacturing to a service sector economic base. It has profound implications for productive capacities and competitiveness of cities and regions. This transformation has affected demographics including income distribution, employment, and social hierarchy; institutional arrangements including the growth of the corporate complex, specialized producer services, capital mobility, informal economy, nonstandard work, and public outlays; as well as geographic spacing including the rise of world cities, spatial mismatch, and metropolitan growth differentials. As cities experience a loss of manufacturing jobs and growth of services, sociologist Saskia Sassen affirms that a widening of the social hierarchy occurs where high-level, high-income, salaried professional jobs expands in the service industries alongside a greater incidence of low-wage, low-skilled jobs, usually filled by immigrants and minorities. A "missing middle" eventually develops in the wage structure. Several effects of this social polarization include the increasing concentration of poverty in large U.S. cities, the increasing concentration of black and Hispanic populations in large U.S. cities, and distinct social forms such as the underclass, informal economy, and entrepreneurial immigrant communities. In addition, the declining manufacturing sector leaves behind strained blue-collared workers who endure chronic unemployment, economic insecurity, and stagnation due to the global economy's capital flight. Wages and unionization rates for manufacturing jobs also decline. One other qualitative dimension involves the feminization of the job supply as more and more women enter the labor force usually in the service sector. Both costs and benefits are associated with economic restructuring.

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