Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences

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Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences

Series Vol. 78 , 18 April 2024


Open Access | Article

Robot Adoption and Employment in China

Jialing Li * 1
1 The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences, Vol. 78, 106-113
Published 18 April 2024. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by EWA Publishing
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Citation Jialing Li. Robot Adoption and Employment in China. AEMPS (2024) Vol. 78: 106-113. DOI: 10.54254/2754-1169/78/20241648.

Abstract

The research level of robotics in China is also at the forefront of the world, but there is no literature on the impact of robotics on the labor market in China. This paper examines the influence of robot adoption in the labor market based on regional and industry-level robot applications. This study concludes that robot adoption will considerably cut labor employment, particularly in industries where machines are more easily replaceable. The results are unaffected by substituting robot density for the dependent variable and controlling for the endogenous issue. This research contributes to the literature on robot installations and the labor market field by providing further empirical data for the structural transformation of China's labor market at a more granular level and in more industry sectors. This article suggests that policymakers in the robot sector should be concerned about the detrimental effects of robot policies on social employment and the unique characteristics of regional economies and industries.

Keywords

Economic development, Robot adoption, Robotics, Unemployment, China economy

References

1. International Federation of Robotics. 2017. "Robots: China Breaks Historic Records in Automation." IFR Press Release, August 16. https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/robotschina-breaks-historic-records-in-automation.

2. Autor, D. H., Levy, F., & Murnane, R. J. (2003). The skill content of recent technological change: An empirical exploration. The Quarterly journal of economics, 118(4), 1279-1333.

3. Benzell, S. G., Kotlikoff, L. J., LaGarda, G., & Sachs, J. D. (2015). Robots are us: Some economics of human replacement (No. w20941). National Bureau of Economic Research.

4. Susskind, D. (2017). A model of technological unemployment. Economics Series Working Papers, 819.

5. Acemoglu, D., & Restrepo, P. (2020). Robots and jobs: Evidence from US labor markets. Journal of Political Economy, 128(6), 2188-2244.

6. Graetz, G., & Michaels, G. (2018). Robots at work. Review of Economics and Statistics, 100(5), 753-768.

7. Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. A. (2017). The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?. Technological forecasting and social change, 114, 254-280.

8. Karabarbounis, L., & Neiman, B. (2014). The global decline of the labor share. The Quarterly journal of economics, 129(1), 61-103.

9. Dinlersoz, E., & Wolf, Z. (2018). Automation, labor share, and productivity: Plant-level evidence from US Manufacturing (No. 18-39).

10. Dauth, W., Findeisen, S., Suedekum, J., & Woessner, N. (2018). Adjusting to robots: Worker-level evidence. Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers, 13.

11. Dixon, J., Hong, B., & Wu, L. (2020). The employment consequences of robots: Firm-level evidence. Ontario: Statistics Canada.

Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Business and Policy Studies
ISBN (Print)
978-1-83558-379-1
ISBN (Online)
978-1-83558-380-7
Published Date
18 April 2024
Series
Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences
ISSN (Print)
2754-1169
ISSN (Online)
2754-1177
DOI
10.54254/2754-1169/78/20241648
Copyright
18 April 2024
Open Access
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Copyright © 2023 EWA Publishing. Unless Otherwise Stated