Industrial Robots and Regional Fertility in European Countries

Abstract

In this study, we examine whether the long-term structural changes in the labour market, driven by automation, affect fertility. The adoption of industrial robots is used as a proxy for these changes. It has tripled since the mid-1990s in the EU, tremendously changing the conditions of participating in the labour market. On the one hand, new jobs are created, benefitting largely the highly skilled workers. On the other hand, the growing turnover in the labour market and changing content of jobs induce fears of job displacement and make workers continuously adjust to new requirements (reskill, upskill, increase work efforts). The consequences of these changes are particularly strong for the employment and earning prospects of low and middle-educated workers. Our focus is on six European countries: Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK. We link regional data on fertility and employment structures by industry from Eurostat (NUTS-2) with data on robot adoption from the International Federation of Robotics. We estimate fixed effects linear models with instrumental variables in order to account for the external shocks which may affect fertility and robot adoption in parallel. Our findings suggest robots tend to exert a negative impact on fertility in highly industrialised regions, regions with relatively low educated populations and those which are technologically less advanced. At the same time, better educated and prospering regions may even experience fertility improvements as a result of technological change. The family and labour market institutions of the country may further moderate these effects.

Introduction to the Special Collection on The new roles of women and men and implications for families and societies

“…Furthermore, research needs to address the new sources of economic uncertainty imposed by technological developments such as digitalization and automation, and their implications for family life. For example, a recent study by Matysiak, Bellani, and Bogusz (2023) shows that fertility may be sensitive to changes in labour market prospects related to the increasing adoption of robots in production, which alters demand for qualifications and skills and increases uncertainty, especially among less-educated/skilled workers. As reliance on Artificial Intelligence escalates across various sectors of the economy (Furman and Seamans 2019;Wirtz, Weyerer, and Geyer 2019), labour market restructuring at a previously unprecedented scale may follow, bringing new uncertainty and challenges for women and men, families and societies.…”

Automation and Income Inequality in Europe

“…These countries are not included in our analysis because the SES data is unavailable for these countries.10 Other studies that instrument robot adoption in European countries with adoption in peer countries includeAnelli, Colantone, et al (2021),Bachmann et al (2022),Damiani et al (2023),Matysiak et al (2023), andNikolova et al (2022).11 See Appendix Appendix C for an extended description of the simulations conducted.…”

“…The evidence on robots' impact on fertility is limited Anelli, Giuntella, et al (2021). showed that robots had no impact on fertility in the U.S Matysiak et al (2023). showed mixed effects in six European countries -negative for some groups, and positive for others.…”