Brown bag seminar: Patrick Emmenegger (University of St. Gallen)

The Missing Link: Technological Change, Dual VET, and Social Policy

Patrick Emmenegger, University of St. Gallen

Technological change is often seen as reshaping inequality and driving demands for compensatory social policy. Yet existing research largely overlooks the role of skills in mediating this relationship. Drawing on two strands of work, this talk highlights how dual vocational education and training (VET) provides a crucial but underappreciated link between technological change, inequality, and social policy preferences. First, using data on 37 advanced economies from 1996 to 2020, we show that dual VET is associated with lower levels of wage inequality, particularly in the lower half of the wage distribution¡ªindicating that academically weaker students benefit most from dual VET systems. Importantly, we find no evidence that the rise of the knowledge economy undermines this egalitarian effect. Second, using cross-national survey data, we demonstrate that dual VET also shapes how individuals respond to automation risk: rather than increasing demand for compensatory social policy, VET reduces it through mechanisms of material self-interest, workplace socialization, and skill certification. Taken together, these findings suggest that skills¡ªstrangely absent in debates about technological change¡ªare central to understanding both distributive outcomes and the politics of social policy in the knowledge economy.

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