Research On The Impact Of Robot Adoption On Employment Structure And Income Distribution

In recent years,with the upsurge of “machine substitution” in China,the impact on the labor market has become more and more profound,which has aroused widespread concern about technical unemployment,wage decline,polarization of employment structure,income gap expansion and labor income share decline.In response to these concerns,the academic community has made a lot of research on the five aspects of total employment,wage,employment structure,income gap and labor income share,and has achieved certain results.However,there are still some problems worthy of further study.For example,how does robot adoption affect employment structure of task post.How does robot adoption affect income gap of task post.How does robot adoption affect gender income gap.Will robot adoption affect labor income share through market concentration.These questions have three aspects of research significance.First of all,robot adoption will inevitably lead to adjustment of employment structure.However,many of these adjustments are focused on the wrong direction.The introduction of robot has the most direct impact on the workers in related task post,not necessarily skilled workers with a certain degree of education.This dissertation discusses robot adoption and employment structure from the perspective of task post,which helps to point out the right direction for optimization and adjustment of employment structure.Secondly,robot adoption is an important carrier to realize manufacturing transformation and upgrading and achieve manufacturing quality and efficiency.However,if the widespread use of robot leads to the contradiction of income distribution among different workers,it will lead to the imbalance between efficiency and equity,which is not conducive to the high-quality development of economy.Different from the perspective of traditional skill income gap,this dissertation cuts in from the perspective of task post and gender income gap,which helps to provide further decision-making basis for the adjustment of efficiency and equity imbalance.Finally,since the 14 th Five-Year Plan,it has been listed as a long-term development priority to improve the distribution of factor income and promote common prosperity.However,it is a difficult issue to pursue capital-biased technological progress represented by robot and to increase the share of labor income and achieve common prosperity.Different from the perspective of traditional factor market,this dissertation discusses robot adoption and labor income share from the perspective of market concentration,which is helpful to provide new ideas for better realizing common prosperity.In view of the above questions,the following conclusions are obtained by using inductive deductive method and high-dimensional fixed effect model analysis:Firstly,the substitution of robot adoption for routine task post mainly crowds out employment of production personnel,while the complementarity of robot adoption to non-routine cognitive task post mainly promotes employment of manager and professional technicians through productivity effects.Different from expectations,due to the superposition of factors such as shortage of skilled talents and mismatch between supply and demand of skills,the creation effect has not played a key role in the adoption of robot to promote employment of manager and professional technicians.Further expansion analysis shows that,the implementation of accelerated depreciation policy of fixed assets and Made in China 2025 policy will help promote the expansion of robot adoption.Secondly,robot adoption has significantly widened the income gap between non-routine cognitive task post and routine task post,and this income gap expansion is mainly reflected between manager and professional technicians and production personnel.Increasing the relative labor supply of non-routine cognitive task post and strengthening labor protection of trade unions can help alleviate such contradictions.Thirdly,robot adoption reduce muscle skill returns mainly through the substitution of physical labor,making male workers who occupy the comparative advantage of muscle skills more damaged,thereby achieving the convergence of gender income gap.Fourthly,robot adoption will gradually form huge entry barriers and monopoly trends,giving birth to superstar enterprises and greatly improving market concentration,which will lead to a decline in labor income share through profit share and cost markup.Fifthly,As an important carrier of automation,the impact of information technology is completely different from robot.Information technology has not significantly changed employment structure and income gap of task post,and does not have the characteristics of routine-biased technological change.On the contrary,it reflects more skill-biased technological change,mainly improving skill premium.At the same time,information technology has not significantly reduced labor income share.On the contrary,it will promote the growth of labor income share of ordinary employees and help to achieve common prosperity.The conclusion of this dissertation means that the labor market needs to adjust differently according to different automation shocks.When facing the impact of robot adoption,the policy recommendations of this dissertation are as follows: Firstly,unemployment protection and re-employment training of production personnel should be strengthened.Manager and professional technicians training in robotics-related fields should be strengthened.Secondly,it should be achieved that a group of production personnel are promoted to manager and professional technicians.The remaining production personnel should be actively guided to transfer employment to service post.Thirdly,more female labour force participation should be encouraged,and female professional skills training should be enhanced.Fourthly,the anti-monopoly supervision and law enforcement of robot leading enterprises should be strengthened.Market competition order should be maintained.At the same time,the popularization and adoption of robot in backward enterprises should be strengthened.The productivity and market competitiveness should be improved.