igitalization, Automation
Photo: Marvin Meyer

Digitalization, Automation and the Future of Work in Post-Industrial Welfare States

Project Description

Aims and Central Research Question
Technological changes are in the process of transforming work as we know it, with important consequences for social inequality, labor market and social policy. This project studies the economic, social and political consequences of digitalization, automation and related processes. The first sub-project focuses on the societal level, assessing for instance how technological change influences individual-level policy preferences on education, labor market and social policy. The second sub-project explores the implications of technological and organizational change at the firm level on employees’ labour market as well as psychological and health-related outcomes.

Background
Whether and to what extent the digital economy will qualitatively change labor markets and welfare states is a hotly debated question. The digital transformation will certainly result in large pay-offs, but it also raises concerns about displacement among workers. What marks it will leave on social inequality therefore depends on how these pay-offs will be (re-)distributed. We are looking into the political struggles about this distribution, and study the real effects of technological change on the labor market. Furthermore, we are interested in the consequences for policy-making in the domains of education, labor market and social policies.

Methods
Our research design is based on multi-level comparison and makes use of multiple methods. We...

  • conduct a survey of public opinion on labor market and social policies;
  • analyze how employers’ and employee representatives’ strategies for handling workplace digitalization affect inequalities within businesses and the behavior of individual employees; and
  • conduct a series of qualitative case studies based on expert interviews and document analysis to study policy positions of political actors.

To compare different models of capitalism and welfare state regimes, we include a number of countries in our analysis (Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, Sweden, United States).

Disciplines

Political Science, Economics, Sociology, Organizational Studies

Starting Date

1 October 2019 (1 February 2019 for first seed funding phase)

Project Partners

Melanie Arntz (ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim)

Melanie Arntz is deputy of ZEW's Research Department “Labour Markets and Human Resources” and Leibniz Professor of Labour Economics at the University of Heidelberg. Her research focuses on the question how changing labour market conditions such as an increasing digitalization of work tasks and the proceeding international division of production processes affects labour markets and individuals. Find more information about Melanie Arntz here.

Wolfgang Dauth (University of Bamberg)

Wolfgang Dauth is head of the Research Department "Regional Labour Markets" at the Institute for Employment Research and Professor of Regional Labor Economics at the Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg. His research focuses on topics in applied microeconomics, which relate to important policy questions. His main research fields are labor, urban/regional, and international economics. Find more information about Wolfgang Dauth here.

Literature

Publications

Arntz, Melanie, Sebastian Findeisen, Stephan Maurer, and Oliver Schlenker. 2024. “Are We yet Sick of New Technologies? The Unequal Health Effects of Digitalization.” Working Paper No. 19. Cluster of Excellence ``The Politics of Inequality’’. https://doi.org/10.48787/kops/352-2-1do830h7dswb43.

Findeisen, Sebastian, Wolfgang Dauth, and Oliver Schlenker. 2024. “Organized Labor versus Robots? Evidence from Micro Data.” Working Paper No. 25. Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality’’. https://doi.org/10.48787/kops/352-2-pkkgn822nr6u9.

Lauterbach, Ann Sophia, and Florian Kunze. 2023. “Office Work after the Pandemic: Conventional or Activity-Based Workplaces?” PERSONALquarterly 75 (4): 34–39.

Lauterbach, Ann Sophia, Tobias Tober, Florian Kunze, and Marius R. Busemeyer. 2023. “Can Welfare States Buffer Technostress? Income and Technostress in the Context of Various OECD Countries.” PLOS ONE 18 (12): e0295229. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295229.

Lauterbach, Ann Sophie, and Florian Kunze. 2023. “A Quasi-Experimental Exploration of Activity-Based Flexible Office Design and Demographic Differences in Employee Absenteeism.” Environment and Behavior 55 (1–2): 47–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/00139165231163549.

Busemeyer, Marius R., and Tobias Tober. 2023. “Dealing with Technological Change: Social Policy Preferences and Institutional Context.” Comparative Political Studies 56 (7): 968–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140221139381.

Busemeyer, Marius R, Mia Gandenberger, Carlo Knotz, and Tobias Tober. 2023. “Preferred Policy Responses to Technological Change: Survey Evidence from OECD Countries.” Socio-Economic Review 21 (1): 593–615. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac015.

Baccaro, Lucio, and Tobias Tober. 2022. “The Role of Wages in the Eurozone.” Review of International Political Economy 29 (4): 1263–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2021.1888143.

Busemeyer, Marius, Sebastian Findeisen, Sebastian Koos, Florian Kunze, and Stephan Maurer. 2022. “Dataset: ‘Risks That Matter’-Survey.” OECD. https://www.oecd.org/social/risks-that-matter.htm#publications.

Busemeyer, Marius R. 2022. “Digitalization, Automation and the Welfare State: What Do We (Not Yet) Know?” In Digitalization and the Welfare State, edited by Marius R. Busemeyer, Achim Kemmerling, Kees Van Kersbergen, and Paul Marx, 21–40. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Busemeyer, Marius R., and Ulrich Glassmann. 2022. “The Value and Future of Work in the Digital Economy.” In Digitalization and the Welfare State, edited by Marius R. Busemeyer, Achim Kemmerling, Kees Van Kersbergen, and Paul Marx, 83–98. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Busemeyer, Marius R., Achim Kemmerling, Paul Marx, and Kees van Kersbergen, eds. 2022. Digitalization and the Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192848369.001.0001.

Busemeyer, Marius R., Achim Kemmerling, Kees Van Kersbergen, and Paul Marx. 2022. “Digitalization and the Future of the Democratic Welfare State.” In Digitalization and the Welfare State, edited by Marius R. Busemeyer, Achim Kemmerling, Kees Van Kersbergen, and Paul Marx, 373–92. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Busemeyer, Marius R., Achim Kemmerling, Kees Van Kersbergen, and Paul Marx. 2022. “Digitalization and the Welfare State: Introduction.” In Digitalization and the Welfare State, edited by Marius R. Busemeyer, Achim Kemmerling, Kees Van Kersbergen, and Paul Marx, 1–20. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Busemeyer, Marius R., and Alexander H. J. Sahm. 2022. “Social Investment, Redistribution or Basic Income? : Exploring the Association Between Automation Risk and Welfare State Attitudes in Europe.” Journal of Social Policy 31 (11): 751–70. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279421000519.

Busemeyer, Marius R., and Kathleen Thelen. 2022. “Employer Influence in Vocational Education and Training: Germany and Sweden Compared.” In Collective Skill Formation in the Knowledge Economy, edited by Giuliano Bonoli and Patrick Emmenegger, 229–54. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192866257.003.0010.

Dauth, Wolfgang, Sebastian Findeisen, and Jens Suedekum. 2021. “Adjusting to Globalization in Germany.” Journal of Labor Economics 39 (1): 263–302. https://doi.org/10.1086/707356.

Dauth, Wolfgang, Sebastian Findeisen, Jens Suedekum, and Nicole Woessner. 2021. “The Adjustment of Labor Markets to Robots.” Journal of the European Economic Association 19 (6): 3104–53. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvab012.

Maurer, Stephan E., and Andrei V. Potlogea. 2021. “Male‐biased Demand Shocks and Women’s Labour Force Participation : Evidence from Large Oil Field Discoveries.” Economica 88 (349): 167–88. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecca.12341.

Reinwald, Max, Sophia Zimmermann, and Florian Kunze. 2021. “Working in the Eye of the Pandemic : Local COVID-19 Infections and Daily Employee Engagement.” Frontiers in Psychology 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.654126.

Tober, Tobias. 2021. “The Launch of EMU and German Export Interests.” Socio-Economic Review 21 (3): 1657–78. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwab054.

Busemeyer, Marius R., and Tobias Tober. 2021. “Social Compensation, Retraining, Shorter Working Hours? : Citizen’s Social Policy Priorities for the Age of Automation.” No. 08. Policy Papers / Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality.” https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/entities/publication/32847a75-4867-4387-89c3-6e8b993c111d

Kunze, Florian, Kilian Hampel, and Sophia Zimmermann. 2020. “Homeoffice in der Corona-Krise : Eine nachhaltige Transformation der Arbeitswelt?” No. 02. Policy Papers / Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality.” http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-2-926cp7kvkn359.