Robots & AI Exposure and Wage Inequality

Florencia Jaccoud
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Florencia Jaccoud: RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, Mt Economic Research Inst on Innov/Techn

No 2025-013, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: This paper examines the linkages between occupational exposure to recent automation technologies and inequality across 19 European countries. Using data from the European Union Structure of Earnings Survey (EU-SES), a fixed-effects model is employed to assess the association between occupational exposure to artificial intelligence (AI) and to industrial robots - two distinct forms of automation -and within occupation wage inequality. The analysis reveals that occupations with higher exposure to robots tend to have lower wage inequality, particularly among workers in the lower half of the wage distribution. In contrast, occupations more exposed to AI exhibit greater wage dispersion, especially at the top of the wage distribution. We argue that this disparity arises from differences in how each technology complements individual worker abilities: robot-related tasks often complement routine physical activities, while AI-related tasks tend to amplify the productivity of high-skilled, cognitively intensive work.

JEL-codes: J24 J31 O15 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-04-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ain, nep-eec, nep-eur, nep-lma and nep-tid
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2025013

DOI: 10.53330/EAJL3597

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