For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Effects of Automation on Wage and Gender Inequality Within Firms

Effects of automation on the gender pay gap: the case of Estonia

“…Nevertheless, in spite of the profound examination of the impact of automation on overall employment and labour force participation (Grigoli et al, 2020), there is very limited empirical research aimed at understanding the effect of automation on gender equality. Recent literature, such as Blanas et al (2019) and Domini et al (2020b), provides some insights into the issue but cannot be considered conclusive. Hence, the authors formulate the following research question: How does the increased tendency for automation and robotization determine the effect of technological development on the gender pay gap?…”

“…The paper investigates and analyses the effects of technological change on labour dynamics and the gender pay gap, determines the interconnection between automation and the gender pay gap, taking into account contributing factors. The technological changes, automation and their effect on labour dynamics, being the research object of the given article, have been previously analysed by a number of studies (Aksoy, Özcan, & Philipp, 2020;Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2020;Graetz & Michaels, 2018;Domini et al, 2020b). The outcomes provide the following evidence while a decrease in wages in the USA due to automation has been documented (Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2020), evidence of an increase in wages and labour productivity in European countries was also detected (Graetz & Michaels, 2018).…”

Effects of Automation on the Gender Pay Gap: the case of Estonia

“…The paper investigates and analyses the effects of technological change on labour dynamics and the gender pay gap, determines the interconnection between automation and the gender pay gap, taking into account contributing factors. The technological changes, automation and their effect on labour dynamics, being the research object of the given article, have been previously analysed by a number of studies (Aksoy, Özcan, & Philipp, 2020;Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2020;Graetz & Michaels, 2018;Domini et al, 2020b). The outcomes provide the following evidence -while a decrease in wages in the USA due to automation has been documented (Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2020), evidence of an increase in wages and labour productivity in European countries was also detected (Graetz & Michaels, 2018).…”

“…Evidence on the direct effects on labour markets of the most recent wave of automation technologies is discussed by a number of researchers (Dauth et al, 2018;Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2018b), and some works specifically focus on the impact of automation at the worker level (Bessen et al, 2019). The effects of automation on wages and the evolution of wage inequality are analysed by Lankisch et al (2017), Bessen (2016) and Domini et al (2020b). This rise in wage inequality is characterized as one of the main reasons behind the rise in overall income inequality that has been observed since the 1980s (Milanovic, 2016;Piketty & Saez, 2003).…”

Effects of Technological Change and Automation on Industry Structure and (Wage-)Inequality: Insights from a Dynamic Task-Based Model

“…Interestingly, they also show that automation spikes are not associated with changes in the occupational composition of firms or changes in jobs that can be characterized as routine or non-routine. In a follow-up paper Domini et al (2021a) again use French firm-level data to explore the effect of automation on within and between firm wage inequality. They find that the largest part of the wage inequality within each sector is due to within firm inequality and that automation spikes have hardly any impact on this inequality.…”