Are we yet sick of new technologies? The unequal health effects of digitalization
Melanie Arntz,
Sebastian Findeisen,
Stephan Maurer and
Oliver Schlenker
No 24-027, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research
Abstract:
This study quantifies the relationship between workplace digitalization, i.e., the increasing use of frontier technologies, and workers' health outcomes using novel and representative German linked employer-employee data. Based on changes in individual-level use of technologies between 2011 and 2019, we find that digitalization induces similar shifts into more complex and service-oriented tasks across all workers, but exacerbates health inequality between cognitive and manual workers. Unlike more mature, computer-based technologies, frontier technologies of the recent technology wave substantially lower manual workers' subjective health and increase sick leave, while leaving cognitive workers unaffected. We provide evidence that the effects are mitigated in firms that provide training and assistance in the adjustment process for workers.
Keywords: health; inequality; technology; machines; automation; tasks; capital-labor substitution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 J21 J23 J24 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-hrm, nep-ict, nep-lma and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/300006/1/1893372812.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Working Paper: Are we yet sick of new technologies? The unequal health effects of digitalization (2024)
Working Paper: Are We Yet Sick of New Technologies? The Unequal Health Effects of Digitalization (2024)
Working Paper: Are we yet sick of new technologies? The unequal health effects of digitalization (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:300006
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().