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Industrial Robots and the Employment Quality of Migrant Workers in the Manufacturing Industry

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  • Bo Chen

    (College of Science and Technology, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315212, China)

  • Dong Tan

    (The School of Economics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China)

Abstract

Machine and manufacturing migrant workers in the new era are side by side cooperation and interaction of the new labor force form. Based on the dynamic survey of China’s floating population in 2011 and the data collected by the International Federation of Robotics, the Bartik instrument variable method is used to analyze the impact of industrial robots on the employment quality of the floating population in manufacturing industry at the city level. As the city scale expands, industrial robots have an inverted U-shaped effect on the employment quality of manufacturing migrant workers. Industrial robots have a positive U-shaped influence on the number of hours that migrant workers in manufacturing work, with an inflexion point of 1.3721 units per 10,000 workers. The influence of industrial robots on migrant workers’ working conditions in the manufacturing sector was U-shaped, and 1.668 units per 10,000 workers marked the tipping point. Nevertheless, industrial robots have an inverse influence on the occupation stability of migrant workers in the manufacturing industry. Precisely, the installation density of industrial robots in the manufacturing industry has a detrimental impact on the occupational stability of migrant employees. Industrial robots are negatively associated with the working conditions of migrant workers employed in manufacturing. There were detrimental effects on the employment quality of manufacturing migrant workers in cities with higher and lower population densities. In the end, for every manufacturing farmer using an industrial robot, the likelihood of being miserable and almost happy went up by 2.64 percent and 5.59 percent, respectively, while the likelihood of being happy went down by 7.62 percent.

Suggested Citation

  • Bo Chen & Dong Tan, 2023. "Industrial Robots and the Employment Quality of Migrant Workers in the Manufacturing Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-21, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:10:p:7998-:d:1146551
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