Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/326942 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
UNU-MERIT Working Papers No. 2025-013
Publisher: 
United Nations University (UNU), Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT), Maastricht
Abstract: 
This paper examines the linkages between occupational exposure to recent automation technologies and inequality across 19 European countries. Using data from the European Union Structure of Earnings Survey (EU-SES), a fixed-effects model is employed to assess the association between occupational exposure to artificial intelligence (AI) and to industrial robots - two distinct forms of automation -and within occupation wage inequality. The analysis reveals that occupations with higher exposure to robots tend to have lower wage inequality, particularly among workers in the lower half of the wage distribution. In contrast, occupations more exposed to AI exhibit greater wage dispersion, especially at the top of the wage distribution. We argue that this disparity arises from differences in how each technology complements individual worker abilities: robot-related tasks often complement routine physical activities, while AI-related tasks tend to amplify the productivity of high-skilled, cognitively intensive work.
Subjects: 
Inequality
Robots
Artificial Intelligence
Occupations
JEL: 
J31
J24
O15
O33
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-sa Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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