Inequality at risk of automation? Gender differences in routine tasks intensity in developing country labor markets

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Pieters, Janneke, Kujundzic, Ana, Burger, Rulof, Gondwe, Joel
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866915235909074944
author Pieters, Janneke
Kujundzic, Ana
Burger, Rulof
Gondwe, Joel
author_facet Pieters, Janneke
Kujundzic, Ana
Burger, Rulof
Gondwe, Joel
contents Technological change can have profound impacts on the labor market. Decades of research have made it clear that technological change produces winners and losers. Machines can replace some types of work that humans do, while new technologies increase human's productivity in other types of work. For a long time, highly educated workers benefitted from increased demand for their labor due to skill-biased technological change, while the losers were concentrated at the bottom of the wage distribution (Katz and Autor, 1999; Goldin and Katz, 2007, 2010; Kijima, 2006). Currently, however, labor markets seem to be affected by a different type of technological change, the so-called routine-biased technological change (RBTC). This chapter studies the risk of automation in developing country labor markets, with a particular focus on differences between men and women. Given the pervasiveness of gender occupational segregation, there may be important gender differences in the risk of automation. Understanding these differences is important to ensure progress towards equitable development and gender inclusion in the face of new technological advances. Our objective is to describe the gender gap in the routine task intensity of jobs in developing countries and to explore the role of occupational segregation and several worker characteristics in accounting for the gender gap.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_07689
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Inequality at risk of automation? Gender differences in routine tasks intensity in developing country labor markets
Pieters, Janneke
Kujundzic, Ana
Burger, Rulof
Gondwe, Joel
General Economics
Economics
Technological change can have profound impacts on the labor market. Decades of research have made it clear that technological change produces winners and losers. Machines can replace some types of work that humans do, while new technologies increase human's productivity in other types of work. For a long time, highly educated workers benefitted from increased demand for their labor due to skill-biased technological change, while the losers were concentrated at the bottom of the wage distribution (Katz and Autor, 1999; Goldin and Katz, 2007, 2010; Kijima, 2006). Currently, however, labor markets seem to be affected by a different type of technological change, the so-called routine-biased technological change (RBTC). This chapter studies the risk of automation in developing country labor markets, with a particular focus on differences between men and women. Given the pervasiveness of gender occupational segregation, there may be important gender differences in the risk of automation. Understanding these differences is important to ensure progress towards equitable development and gender inclusion in the face of new technological advances. Our objective is to describe the gender gap in the routine task intensity of jobs in developing countries and to explore the role of occupational segregation and several worker characteristics in accounting for the gender gap.
title Inequality at risk of automation? Gender differences in routine tasks intensity in developing country labor markets
topic General Economics
Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.07689