It goes against the folksy economic belief that there is only so much work to go around, and that upsetting the equilibrium of the labour force – by increasing female labour participation, or allowing immigration, or using robots – will reduce the available work for workers. But this belief is nonsense. It’s a form of zero-sum thinking that has largely been dispensed with by economic theory and historical evidence. Economists call it the ‘lump of labour fallacy’.
