Don't Fear the Robots: Automatability and Job Satisfaction

Gorny, Paul M. and Woodard, Ritchie C. (2020): Don't Fear the Robots: Automatability and Job Satisfaction.

Abstract

We analyse the correlation between job satisfaction and automatability - the degree to which an occupation can be or is at risk of being replaced by computerised equipment. Using multiple survey datasets matched with various measures of automatability from the literature, we find that there is a negative and statistically significant correlation that is robust to controlling for worker and job characteristics. Depending on the dataset, a one standard deviation increase in automatability leads to a drop in job satisfaction of about 0.73% to 1.85% for the average worker. Unlike other studies, we provide evidence that it is not the fear of losing the job that mainly drives this result, but the fact that monotonicity and low perceived meaning of the job drive both automatability as well as low job satisfaction.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Job Satisfaction, Automation, Monotonous Tasks
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J0 - General > J01 - Labor Economics: General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J28 - Safety ; Job Satisfaction ; Related Public Policy; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J8 - Labor Standards: National and International > J81 - Working Conditions; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights > O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences ; Diffusion Processes

References

Abbott, R, and BN Bogenschneider. 2018. “Should Robots Pay Taxes? Tax Policy in the Age of Automation.” Harvard Law & Policy Review 12 (1): 145–75.

Acemoglu, Daron. 1998. “Why Do New Technologies Complement Skills? Directed Technical Change and Wage Inequality.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 113 (4). MIT Press: 1055–89.

Acemoglu, Daron. 2002a. “Directed Technical Change.” The Review of Economic Studies 69 (4). Wiley-Blackwell: 781–809.

Acemoglu, Daron. 2002b. “Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market.” Journal of Economic Literature 40 (1): 7–72.

Acemoglu, Daron, and Pascual Restrepo. 2018. “The Race Between Man and Machine: Implications of Technology for Growth, Factor Shares, and Employment.” American Economic Review 108 (6): 1488–1542.

Acemoglu, Daron, and Pascual Restrepo. 2020. “Robots and Jobs: Evidence from Us Labor Markets.” Journal of Political Economy 128 (6). The University of Chicago Press Chicago, IL: 000–000.

Aghion, Philippe, and Peter Howitt. 1994. “Growth and Unemployment.” The Review of Economic Studies 61 (3). Wiley-Blackwell: 477–94.

Ales, Laurence, Musab Kurnaz, and Christopher Sleet. 2015. “Technical Change, Wage Inequality, and Taxes.” American Economic Review 105 (10): 3061–3101.

Anonymous. 2012. “European Social Survey Round 6 Data. Data File Edition 2.4.” DOI: 10.21338/NSD-ESS6-2012; NSD - Norwegian Centre for Research Data, Norway.

Antecol, Heather, and Deborah Cobb-Clark. 2009. “Racial Harassment, Job Satisfaction, and Intentions to Remain in the Military.” Journal of Population Economics 22 (3). Springer: 713–38.

Arntz, Melanie, Terry Gregory, and Ulrich Zierahn. 2016. “The Risk of Automation for Jobs in Oecd Countries.” OECD.

Arntz, Melanie, Terry Gregory, and Ulrich Zierahn. 2017. “Revisiting the Risk of Automation.” Economics Letters 159. Elsevier: 157–60.

Autor, David H., and David Dorn. 2013. “The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the Us Labor Market.” American Economic Review 103 (5): 1553–97.

Autor, David, and Anna Salomons. 2018. “Is Automation Labor-Displacing? Productivity Growth, Employment, and the Labor Share.” National Bureau of Economic Research.

Bakan, Ismail, and Assist Tuba Buyukbese. 2013. “The Relationship Between Employees’ Income Level and Employee Job Satisfaction: An Empirical Study.” International Journal of Business and Social Science 4 (7). Centre for Promoting Ideas, USA: 18–25.

Bender, Keith A, Susan M Donohue, and John S Heywood. 2005. “Job Satisfaction and Gender Segregation.” Oxford Economic Papers 57 (3). Oxford University Press: 479–96.

Benjamin, Daniel J, James O Berger, Magnus Johannesson, Brian A Nosek, E-J Wagenmakers, Richard Berk, Kenneth A Bollen, et al. 2018. “Redefine Statistical Significance.” Nature Human Behaviour 2 (1). Nature Publishing Group: 6–10.

Bessen, James E, Maarten Goos, Anna Salomons, and Wiljan Van den Berge. 2019. “Automatic Reaction-What Happens to Workers at Firms That Automate?”

Blankenau, William F, and Beth F Ingram. 2002. “Welfare Implications of Factor Taxation with Rising Wage Inequality.” Macroeconomic Dynamics 6 (3). Cambridge University Press: 408–28.

Bonin, Holger, Terry Gregory, and Ulrich Zierahn. 2015. “Übertragung Der Studie von Frey/Osborne (2013) Auf Deutschland.” ZEW.

Bradley, Don E, and James A Roberts. 2004. “Self-Employment and Job Satisfaction: Investigating the Role of Self-Efficacy, Depression, and Seniority.” Journal of Small Business Management 42 (1). Taylor & Francis: 37–58.

Brandes, Philipp, and Roger Wattenhofer. 2016. “Opening the Frey/Osborne Black Box: Which Tasks of a Job Are Susceptible to Computerization?”

Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee. 2014. The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. WW Norton & Company.

Bryson, Alex, Lorenzo Cappellari, and Claudio Lucifora. 2010. “Why so Unhappy? The Effects of Unionization on Job Satisfaction.” Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 72 (3). Wiley Online Library: 357–80.

Calvino, Flavio, and Maria Enrica Virgillito. 2018. “The Innovation-Employment Nexus: A Critical Survey of Theory and Empirics.” Journal of Economic Surveys 32 (1). Wiley Online Library: 83–117.

Carton, Ann, and others. 2017. “International Social Survey Programme: Work Orientations Iv - Issp 2015.” GESIS Data archive, Cologne. ZA6770 Data File Version 2.1.0, https://doi.org/10.4232/1.12848. doi:10.4232/1.12848.

Clark, Andrew E. 1997. “Job Satisfaction and Gender: Why Are Women so Happy at Work?” Labour Economics 4 (4). Elsevier: 341–72.

Clark, Andrew E, Sarah Flèche, Richard Layard, Nattavudh Powdthavee, and George Ward. 2017. “The Key Determinants of Happiness and Misery.” Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics; Political Science.

Clark, Andrew, Yannis Georgellis, and Peter Sanfey. 2001. “Scarring: The Psychological Impact of Past Unemployment.” Economica 68 (270). Wiley Online Library: 221–41.

Costinot, Arnaud, and Iván Werning. 2018. “Robots, Trade, and Luddism: A Sufficient Statistic Approach to Optimal Technology Regulation.” National Bureau of Economic Research.

Curtis, Charlotte. 1983. “The David Rockefeller Touch.” New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/08/arts/machines-vs-workers.html.

Daimler Mobility AG. 2020. “California, Here We Come!” Daimler Mobility AG. url: https://www.daimler-mobility.com/en/innovations/autonomous-driving/pilot-project/

Dauth, Wolfgang, Sebastian Findeisen, Jens Südekum, and Nicole Woessner. 2017. “German Robots-the Impact of Industrial Robots on Workers.”

De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel, and George Ward. 2017. “Does Work Make You Happy? Evidence from the World Happiness Report.” Harvard Business Review.

Decker, Michael, Martin Fischer, and Ingrid Ott. 2017. “Service Robotics and Human Labor: A First Technology Assessment of Substitution and Cooperation.” Robotics and Autonomous Systems 87: 348–54. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2016.09.017.

Dengler, Katharina, and Britta Matthes. 2015. “Folgen Der Digitalisierung Für Die Arbeitswelt: Substituierbarkeitspotenziale von Berufen in Deutschland.” IAB-Forschungsbericht.

Fisher, Cynthia D. 2010. “Happiness at Work.” International Journal of Management Reviews 12 (4). Wiley Online Library: 384–412.

Freeman, Richard B. 1977. “Job Satisfaction as an Economic Variable.” National Bureau of Economic Research.

Frey, Carl Benedikt, and Michael A Osborne. 2017. “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 114. Elsevier: 254–80.

Gihleb, Rania, Osea Giuntella, Luca Stella, and Tianyi Wang. 2020. “Industrial Robots, Workers’ Safety, and Health.”

Graetz, Georg, and Guy Michaels. 2018. “Robots at Work.” Review of Economics and Statistics 100 (5). MIT Press: 753–68.

Hacket, Rick D. 1989. “Work Attitudes and Employee Absenteeism: A Synthesis of the Literature.” Journal of Occupational Psychology 62 (3). Wiley Online Library: 235–48.

Hinks, Tim. 2020. “Fear of Robots and Life Satisfaction.” International Journal of Social Robotics. Springer, 1–14.

Hu, Xiaoxiao, Seth Kaplan, and Reeshad S Dalal. 2010. “An Examination of Blue-Versus White-Collar Workers’ Conceptualizations of Job Satisfaction Facets.” Journal of Vocational Behavior 76 (2). Elsevier: 317–25.

International Labour Organization. 2020. “ILOSTAT Database [Industrial Relations, Sdg Labour Market Indicators].” https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/.

Inuwa, Mohammed. 2016. “Job Satisfaction and Employee Performance: An Empirical Approach.” The Millennium University Journal 1 (1): 90–103.

Judge, Timothy A, Carl J Thoresen, Joyce E Bono, and Gregory K Patton. 2001. “The Job Satisfaction–job Performance Relationship: A Qualitative and Quantitative Review.” Psychological Bulletin 127 (3). American Psychological Association: 376–407.

Kalleberg, Arne L, and Karyn A Loscocco. 1983. “Aging, Values, and Rewards: Explaining Age Differences in Job Satisfaction.” American Sociological Review 48 (1). JSTOR: 78–90.

King, Adam. 2020. https://talktotransformer.com.

Lambert, Eric G, Nancy Lynne Hogan, and Shannon M Barton. 2001. “The Impact of Job Satisfaction on Turnover Intent: A Test of a Structural Measurement Model Using a National Sample of Workers.” The Social Science Journal 38 (2). Taylor & Francis: 233–50.

Lange, Thomas. 2012. “Job Satisfaction and Self-Employment: Autonomy or Personality?” Small Business Economics 38 (2). Springer: 165–77.

Layard, Richard. 2011. Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. Penguin UK.

Leontaridi, Rannia, Peter Sloane, and others. 2001. “Measuring the Quality of Jobs.” AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.

Manyika, James, and others. 2017. “A Future That Works: AI, Automation, Employment, and Productivity.”

Melamed, Samuel, Irit Ben-Avi, Jair Luz, and Manfred S Green. 1995. “Objective and Subjective Work Monotony: Effects on Job Satisfaction, Psychological Distress, and Absenteeism in Blue-Collar Workers.” Journal of Applied Psychology 80 (1). American Psychological Association: 29.

Mokyr, Joel, Chris Vickers, and Nicolas L Ziebarth. 2015. “The History of Technological Anxiety and the Future of Economic Growth: Is This Time Different?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 29 (3): 31–50.

Nieuwenhuijsen, Karen, David Bruinvels, and Monique Frings-Dresen. 2010. “Psychosocial Work Environment and Stress-Related Disorders, a Systematic Review.” Occupational Medicine 60 (4). Oxford University Press: 277–86.

Rayo, Luis, and Gary S Becker. 2007. “Evolutionary Efficiency and Happiness.” Journal of Political Economy 115 (2). The University of Chicago Press: 302–37.

Rebelo, Sérgio, Pedro Teles, and Joao Guerreiro. 2019. “Should Robots Be Taxed?”

Schwabe, Henrik, Fulvio Castellacci, and others. 2020. “Automation, Workers’ Skills and Job Satisfaction.” Centre for Technology, Innovation; Culture, University of Oslo.

Smith, Tom W., Michael Davern, Jeremy Freese, and Stephen L. Morgan. 2019. “General Social Surveys, 1972-2018: Cumulative Codebook.” Chicago: NORC.

Smith, Tom W., Michael Davern, Jeremy Freese, and Stephen L. Morgan. 2020. “General Social Surveys.” http://www.gss.norc.org/get-the-data/stata; Chicago: NORC, 2019.

Spector, Paul E. 1997. Job Satisfaction: Application, Assessment, Causes, and Consequences. Vol. 3. Sage Publications.

Stiglitz, Joseph E, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi. 2010. Mismeasuring Our Lives: Why Gdp Doesn’t Add up. The New Press.

Stoilova, Rumiana, Petya Ilieva-Trichkova, and Franziska Bieri. 2020. “Work–life Balance in Europe: Institutional Contexts and Individual Factors.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 40 (3/4). Emerald Publishing Limited: 366–81.

The World Bank. 2020. “World Bank Open Data [World Bank National Accounts Data, and Oecd National Accounts Data Files].” https://datacatalog.worldbank.org.

The World Bank. n.d. “World Development Indicators.” https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators.

Thuemmel, Uwe. 2018. “Optimal Taxation of Robots.”

Van der Klink, JJ, RW Blonk, Aart H Schene, and FJ Van Dijk. 2001. “The Benefits of Interventions for Work-Related Stress.” American Journal of Public Health 91 (2). American Public Health Association: 270.

Vieira, José A Cabral. 2005. “Skill Mismatches and Job Satisfaction.” Economics Letters 89 (1). Elsevier: 39–47.

Westover, Jonathan H, and Jeannette Taylor. 2010. “International Differences in Job Satisfaction.” International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management 59 (8). Emerald Group Publishing Limited: 811–28.