Is Technology Widening the Gender Gap? Automation and the Future of Female Employment

By Mariya Brussevich, Era Dabla-Norris, Salma Khalid

May 6, 2019

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Mariya Brussevich, Era Dabla-Norris, and Salma Khalid. Is Technology Widening the Gender Gap? Automation and the Future of Female Employment, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2019) accessed December 21, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

Using individual level data on task composition at work for 30 advanced and emerging economies, we find that women, on average, perform more routine tasks than men?tasks that are more prone to automation. To quantify the impact on jobs, we relate data on task composition at work to occupation level estimates of probability of automation, controlling for a rich set of individual characteristics (e.g., education, age, literacy and numeracy skills). Our results indicate that female workers are at a significantly higher risk for displacement by automation than male workers, with 11 percent of the female workforce at high risk of being automated given the current state of technology, albeit with significant cross-country heterogeneity. The probability of automation is lower for younger cohorts of women, and for those in managerial positions.

Subject: Automation, Education, Gender, Gender inequality, Technology, Women

Keywords: Automation, Eastern Europe, Europe, Female Labor Force, Gender Equality, Gender inequality, Gender RTI gap, Global, Job task characteristic, Job task description, Jobs, Labor force, Occupational Choice, Probability of automation, Routine job task, RTI index, Service worker, Southern Europe, Technological Change, Women, Workers in occupation X, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

37
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2019/091
Stock No:

WPIEA2019091
ISBN:

9781498303743
ISSN:

1018-5941

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