The future is ours: Women, automation and equality in the digital age

Article

Automation will produce significant productivity gains that will reshape specific sectors and occupations. These gains are likely to be recirculated, with jobs reallocated rather than eliminated, economic output increased, and new sources of wealth created. The problem is likely to be one of how income and wealth are distributed. Automation could create a ‘paradox of plenty’: society would be far richer in aggregate, but, for many individuals and communities, technological change could reinforce inequalities of power and reward.

These changes may well affect men and women differently, because men and women tend to have different jobs in the UK labour market. Our analysis shows that twice as many women as men work in occupations with a high potential for automation (9 per cent compared to 4 per cent of men), and that 64 per cent of jobs in these occupations are held by women. Migrants, and lone parents (typically women) are more likely to hold jobs with high automation potential.

But technology is not destiny. This paper argues that automation presents an opportunity to narrow gender inequalities, and sets out four propositions for change based on this premise.

Related items

  1. Change you can board: Delivering better, greener buses

    The bus services bill is an opportunity to ensure reform really means thriving, green 21st century local bus networks in England.

  2. Harry Quilter-Pinner on BBC Radio 4 Today discussing political donations

  3. A sign for a polling station next to a block of flats

    Modernising elections: How to get voters back

    Elections are the defining feature of modern democracy. They are the process by which we express a desired future en masse. It is the mass dimension that matters most; it is the mass dimension that is receding.