Robots and gender inequality: Evidence from Chinese firms

Abstract The recent advances in robotics technologies and increased adoption of industrial robots have brought about tremendous changes to the production processes and labor market, thus raising the question of how women fared relative to men in this process. In this paper, we study the impacts of robot adoption on gender inequality. Using data on robot imports of Chinese industrial firms, we find that the use of robots significantly increases the relative share of female employees and thus reduces the gender employment gap. We then examine the heterogeneous impacts across industries and regions and find stronger positive effects of robots on women's employment in labor‐intensive industries, low‐ and medium‐tech sectors, male‐intensive industries, and regions with lower female educational attainment. Further empirical analysis suggests that the use of robots significantly reduces the gender pay gap for low‐skilled workers, but not for higher‐skilled workers. Our findings are consistent with the fact that robots mainly substitute for brawn skills in which men have a comparative advantage. Overall, our study highlights the importance of robots and other automation technologies in boosting women's employment and reducing gender inequality in the labor market.