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The Impact of ICT and Robots on Labour Market Outcomes of Demographic Groups in Europe

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  • Maciej Albinowski
  • Piotr Lewandowski

Abstract

We study the age- and gender-specific labour market effects of two key modern technologies – Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and robots – in 14 European countries between 2010-2018. To identify the causal effects of technology adoption, we utilize the variation of technology adoption between industries and apply the instrumental variables strategy proposed by Acemoglu and Restrepo (2020). We find that the adoption of ICT and robots increased the shares of young and prime-aged women in employment and wage bill of particular sectors, but reduced the shares of older women and prime-aged men. The negative effects were particularly pronounced for older women in cognitive occupations – who tend to have low ICT-related skills – and for young men in routine manual occupations who experienced substitution by robots. Between 2010 and 2018, the growth of ICT capital played a visibly larger role than robot adoption in explaining changes in labour market outcomes of demographic groups.

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  • Maciej Albinowski & Piotr Lewandowski, 2022. "The Impact of ICT and Robots on Labour Market Outcomes of Demographic Groups in Europe," IBS Working Papers 04/2022, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    • Handle: RePEc:ibt:wpaper:wp042022
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    Cited by:

    1. Dario Guarascio & Alessandro Piccirillo & Jelena Reljic, 2024. "Will robot replace workers? Assessing the impact of robots on employment and wages with meta-analysis," LEM Papers Series 2024/03, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    2. Eder, Andreas & Koller, Wolfgang & Mahlberg, Bernhard, 2024. "Industrial robots and employment change in manufacturing: A combination of index and production-theoretical decomposition analysis," MPRA Paper 121128, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Albinowski, Maciej & Lewandowski, Piotr, 2024. "The impact of ICT and robots on labour market outcomes of demographic groups in Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    4. Jurkat, Anne & Klump, Rainer & Schneider, Florian, 2023. "Robots and Wages: A Meta-Analysis," EconStor Preprints 274156, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    5. Fabien Petit & Florencia Jaccoud & Tommaso Ciarli, 2023. "Heterogeneous Adjustments of Labor Markets to Automation Technologies," CESifo Working Paper Series 10237, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    technological change; labour market outcomes; demographic groups; Europe;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

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