How new quality productive forces affect income disparities within enterprises: a work tasks perspective

New quality productive forces, serving as the fundamental driver for comprehensively advancing Chinese modernization, provide crucial support for fulfilling its essential requirement of achieving common prosperity. This study empirically examines Chinese A-share listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets as the initial sample, based on measuring enterprise-level new quality productive forces and the income gap between workers performing different tasks. The findings reveal that: (1) The income gap between nonroutine and routine labor tasks within enterprises significantly decreases with the development of new quality productive forces. (2) The income gap reduction effect of new quality productive forces across labor tasks is more pronounced in enterprises with strong internal organizational capabilities, non-state-owned enterprises, and regions with higher marketization levels. (3) New quality productive forces significantly reduce income disparities within enterprises through job turnover effects, labor productivity effects, and skill diversification effects. Further analysis demonstrates that increased human capital investment is essential for enhancing the impact of new quality productive forces on reducing income disparities within enterprises. These findings provide micro-level empirical evidence and policy insights for China to better develop and cultivate new quality productive forces and address the impacts of the new wave of technological transformation on the labor market.