Robots and the Gender Wage Gap: A Cross-Country Analysis

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of industrial robot adoption on the gender wage gap using a 
modified capital-skill complementary model. By utilizing a global sample of more than 100 
countries, including developing countries and backdating the robot data with machinery data 
from 1960 to 2019, I find that rising robot machinery capital increases the gender wage gap. 
Moreover, the robot machinery capital is more complementary to men, who dominate the 
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, as it rises male’s wage more 
than female’s wage. The paper also finds that there is a heterogeneity based on the level of 
economic development and region but not on the global gender index