Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/289440 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper Series No. 19
Publisher: 
University of Konstanz, Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality", Konstanz
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.
Subjects: 
health
inequality
technology
machines
automation
tasks
capital-labor substitution
JEL: 
I14
J21
J23
J24
O33
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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