Labor Economics: Automation and Gender: Implications for Occupational Segregation and the Gender Skill Gap (joint with Patricia Cortes and Nicolas Guida-Johnson)

Abstract: Occupational segregation by gender, although still sizable, has decreased significantly over the last few decades. Women have also made marked gains in education relative to men, with the gender gap in college education reversing in favor of women since the early 1990s. In this paper, we examine the contribution of automation to both these phenomena. Specifically, we analyze the effects of automation on the occupational structure of men and women and overall occupational segregation as well as gender differences in skill investments. We start by documenting two facts: (1) in 1980, women were much more likely than men to be in occupations with a high risk of automation, and (2) the cross-occupational relationship between risk of automation in 1980 and the change in worker share between 1980 and 2017, though negative for both genders, is much steeper for women. Taken together, these two facts suggest that women were more likely to be displaced by automation.

* To join the seminar, please contact at econ.events@umich.edu