Over the next decade, millions of workers will be displaced by automation, while millions more jobs – some of which do not exist today – will be created.
The extent to which jobs are routinized—whether physically or cognitively—will largely determine how vulnerable they are to automation. Jobs that require social, emotional, and complex cognitive skills are less vulnerable.
It is likely that women and men will experience automation differently. In terms of job losses, men are more highly concentrated in occupations that have routine physical components (machine operators, for example), while women are more likely to be in occupations that have routine cognitive aspects (such as clerical work or service work).
Automation often does not totally replace a job. It changes a job so that humans and machines each perform components. Some occupations are more vulnerable than others are to partial automation. Approximately half of female-dominated occupations face this risk, compared to 80 percent of male-dominated occupations. This partial automation implies that, again, routine physical and cognitive skills will be valued less in the workplace of the future, while technical, social, and emotional skills will be valued more.
Technological innovation does not simply replace or reconfigure jobs, however; it also creates new ones. Estimates are that by 2030, up to 9% of the U.S. population could be employed in jobs that do not exist today. To make these transitions, most workers (both men and women) will need some form of higher education. While women are acquiring higher education on par with (or surpassing) men, the workforce of 2030 will require that they acquire skills that will most closely match those needed for this blended work environment.
The acquisition of higher education is not a guarantee, however, of financial security. Locally, of the top 20 female-dominated jobs, 14 require some sort of post-secondary education. But only nine of these jobs have median annual earnings that exceed self-sufficiency – defined as a level of income required to meet a family’s basic needs. For men, 11 out of the top 20 male-dominated jobs pay more than self-sufficiency, and only two require post-secondary education. All of the top 20 male-dominated jobs are in the trades – many are at risk for some degree of displacement.
Here’s the challenge. While women appear to be better positioned to deal with increased automation, that outcome is dependent on several things. Will they acquire the necessary skills that these new or blended occupations require? Women’s presence in professional, technical, and scientific fields is still sparse, and the outlook is far from parity. Will they be able to take advantage of the opportunities technological innovation presents? Women need to have the flexibility to move – geographically, across occupations and industries, and employers. However, because women perform more unpaid work than men do, their ability to take advantage of opportunities may be more limited. And will women be fully engaged in technology? Women need to have more access to technologies and acquire the skills to both fully utilize them and to develop them. Automation can be a help or a hindrance for women’s economic advancement, and the institutions and structures we establish today will determine which it is.
Julie Heath is director of the Economics Center at the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services at the University of Cincinnati. She holds the Alpaugh Family Chair in Economics.