OVER my working life, I have watched the next generation enter organisations with different expectations. Business leaders today frequently complain that younger employees view careers, loyalty and work differently from earlier generations. That may be so, but we should also ask whether the economic proposition attached to work has changed. For many young people today, the connection between work, progress and economic security is much less certain. Perhaps that is one reason something interesting is happening across very different parts of the world.

In France, Spain, Belgium, and Albania, young people have been prominent in protests around issues pertaining to education, housing, public services, living costs, and austerity. In India, a youth-led protest movement that began around examinations and electoral processes appears to reflect a deeper frustration about jobs, opportunity and institutions. The circumstances are clear­­­ly different, and it would be simplistic to describe this as a single global movement. But perhaps young people in these very different societies are asking versions of the same question. Does the economic system they have inherited still offer them a credible path towards a better life?

For much of the post-World War II period, the bargain was reasonably clear. Get educated, find employment, work hard, buy a home, accumulate some assets, and eventually retire with reasonable security. Each generation could expect to live better than the previous one. But this bargain is beginning to look less certain. When we think about inequality, we normally think about rich and poor, or capital and........

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