Industrial Robots, Workers' Safety, and Health

Gihleb, Rania; Giuntella, Osea; Stella, Luca; Wang, Tianyi

doi:10.3386/w30180

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…So far, there is only limited research on other non-monetary aspects of job quality. Closer to our topic are recent papers by Gihleb et al (2020); Gunadi and Ryu (2021) and Lerch (2020). While Lerch (2020) is mostly concerned with labor market effects of robots, he also presents some evidence that robot adoption might be correlated with the prevalence of health problems or admissions to hospitals for displaced workers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…While Lerch (2020) is mostly concerned with labor market effects of robots, he also presents some evidence that robot adoption might be correlated with the prevalence of health problems or admissions to hospitals for displaced workers. Gihleb et al (2020) and Gunadi and Ryu (2021) use data on industrial robot penetration and find that increased robot use is reducing work‐related injuries and improving health in the US, finding a negative relationship. The work of Gihleb et al (2020), which is contemporaneous to ours also explores the effect on work intensity in Germany, without identifying any impact.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gihleb et al (2020) and Gunadi and Ryu (2021) use data on industrial robot penetration and find that increased robot use is reducing work‐related injuries and improving health in the US, finding a negative relationship. The work of Gihleb et al (2020), which is contemporaneous to ours also explores the effect on work intensity in Germany, without identifying any impact. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that their data and setup only allow them to explore between‐occupation change in the latter variable (while a large part of the variation in what workers do takes place within occupations) (Freeman et al, 2020; Maier, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does robotization affect job quality? Evidence from European regional labor markets

Antón

Fernández‐Macías

Winter‐Ebmer

2022

Industrial Relations

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Whereas there are recent papers on the effect of robot adoption on employment and wages, there is no evidence on how robots affect non‐monetary working conditions. We explore the impact of robot adoption on several domains of non‐monetary working conditions in Europe over the period 1995–2005 combining information from the World Robotics Survey and the European Working Conditions Survey. In order to deal with the possible endogeneity of robot deployment, we employ an instrumental variables strategy, using the robot exposure by sector in other developed countries as an instrument. Our results indicate that robotization has a negative impact on the quality of work in the dimension of work intensity and no relevant impact on the domains of physical environment or skills and discretion.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does robotization affect job quality? Evidence from European regional labor markets

Antón

Fernández‐Macías

Winter‐Ebmer

2022

Industrial Relations

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“…1010 In line with this view, Gihleb et al . (2020) document that the introduction of robots is associated with significant improvements in industrial workers' health and safety, suggesting that automation can often be a win–win solution for both capitalists and workers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gihleb et al . 2020). To check this, and in particular whether ER favours similar improvements in working conditions, we split the sample depending on the past quality of the task environment.…”

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confidence: 99%

Advanced Technologies and Worker Voice

2022

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The interplay between labour institutions and firm-level adoption of new technologies such as robotics and other advanced digital tools remains poorly understood. Using a cross-sectional sample of more than 20,000 European establishments, we document a positive association between shop-floor employee representation (ER) and utilization of emerging technologies. We explore mechanisms driving this correlation by exploiting rich information on the role played by ER in relation to well-defined decision areas of management, such as work organization, dismissals, training and working time. In addition, we conduct a quantitative case study using a panel of Italian firms and exploiting size-contingent policy rules governing the operation of ER bodies in the context of a local-randomization regression discontinuity design. The analysis suggests a positive effect of ER on investments in advanced technologies around the firm size cut-off, although results are sensitive to type of technology and specification choices. We also document positive effects on training and process innovation, and no evidence of changes in composition of employment. Our findings cast doubt on the idea that ER discourages technology adoption. Rather, ER seems to influence workplace practices that enhance the complementarity between labour and new advanced technologies.

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Industrial Robots and Regional Fertility in European Countries

2023

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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.

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Industrial Robots, Workers' Safety, and Health

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Does robotization affect job quality? Evidence from European regional labor markets

Does robotization affect job quality? Evidence from European regional labor markets

Advanced Technologies and Worker Voice

Industrial Robots and Regional Fertility in European Countries

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