工业机器人应用如何影响年轻人婚育行为?

How Does the Adoption of Industrial Robots Affect Young People,s Marriage and Fertility?

现有研究聚焦于工业机器人应用对劳动力市场的影响,而相对忽略了其他社会经济后果。本文将自动化技术引入家庭集体模型,理论分析了自动化技术应用通过缩小性别工资差距,降低女性的结婚和生育意愿的机制。基于国际机器人联盟数据和人口普查以及人口抽样调查数据,本文实证发现,工业机器人应用显著提高了年轻人的结婚年龄和离婚率,但减少了生育子女数量。这一结论在控制贸易的影响、更换样本等稳健检验下均成立。机制分析表明,工业机器人应用相对提高了女性的劳动参与率和工资收入,同时增加了子女养育成本。进一步分析发现,随着女性相对经济地位提升,工业机器人应用对女孩出生率的负面影响更小,因此有助于缓解中国长期以来的性别失衡现象。在产业智能化和人口负增长的双重背景下,本文提出,推动职业教育高质量发展和增强就业灵活性,能够有效缓解工业机器人应用对婚育行为的负面影响。

Focusing mainly on the labor market,existing studies have relatively ignored the impact of industrial robot adoption on other socioeconomic aspects.This paper introduces automation into a family collective model,and we find that robot adoption reduces women,s willingness to marry and have children by narrowing gender income gap.Based on the International Federation of Robotics(IFR)data and the census data of China,this paper finds that the adoption of industrial robots significantly increases the age of marriage and the likelihood of divorce but reduces fertility.These conclusions are still held under various robust tests such as controlling for the impact of trade and changing samples.Mechanism analysis shows that the adoption of industrial robots has increased women,s labor participation rate and wage income,therefore it has increased the cost of child-rearing.Additional analysis reveals that with the improvement of women,s relative economic status,the adoption of industrial robots has a small impact on encouraging the birth of girls,thus alleviating the long-standing gender imbalance in China.As the development of industries moves toward intelligence-oriented and China,s population starts negative growth,this paper proposes that promoting a high-quality development of vocational education and enhancing employment flexibility can effectively alleviate the negative impact of industrial robot adoption on marriage and fertility.