机器人使用如何影响女性生育意愿

How does Robot Use Affect Women's Fertility Intention?

新兴技术变革作为推动经济高质量发展的关键动力,其对生育观念的影响受到广泛关注。本文通过理论模型厘清机器人使用影响女性生育意愿的内在逻辑,并综合使用国际机器人联盟(IFR)公布的机器人安装数据和2018年家庭追踪调查数据(CFPS2018)进行实证检验。研究发现:(1)机器人使用降低了女性生育意愿,该结论在使用双重机器学习、双向固定效应模型等进行稳健性检验及使用工具变量处理内生性问题后依然成立;(2)机器人使用降低女性生育意愿的机制是谈判地位效应;(3)机器人使用对体制外的就业部门、劳动力成本高的地区、受宗族文化影响强的家庭的女性生育意愿的抑制效应更大;(4)以机器人为代表的新兴科技变革改变了家庭生育偏好,说明机器人使用有助于缓解性别比例失衡。同时,机器人使用还冲击了女性的“性别角色”观念,提高了女性在生育决策中的自主性。为此,可以通过健全产权保护制度,优化营商环境等措施,充分发挥机器人等新兴技术对经济高质发展的推动作用,缓解性别比例失衡。

Maintaining a moderate population size and fertility level is a key measure for high-quality population development to support Chinese-style modernization.As a key driving force for high-quality economic development,emerging technological change has attracted wide attention on its impact on fertility concepts.This paper uses a theoretical model to clarify the internal logic of robot use affecting female fertility intention,and comprehensively uses the robot installation data published by the International Federation of Robotics(IFR)and the 2018 Family Tracking survey data(CFPS2018)for empirical test.It is found that(1)the use of robots reduces female fertility intention,and this conclusion is still valid after the robustness test using dual machine learning,two-way fixed effect model,etc.,and the use of instrumental variables to deal with endogenous problems;(2)The mechanism by which robot use reduces female fertility intention is the bargaining position effect;(3)The use of robots has a greater inhibitory effect on female reproductive intention in employment sectors outside the system,areas with high labor costs,and families strongly influenced by clan culture;(4)Emerging technological changes represented by robots have changed family fertility preferences,indicating that the use of robots can help alleviate the gender imbalance.At the same time,the use of robots also impacts women's concept of"gender role"and improves women's autonomy in reproductive decision-making.The conclusions of this paper deepen the existing research understanding of how the emerging technological revolution affects fertility,and provide an important reference for maintaining appropriate fertility levels and population size and resolving gender imbalance in the context of Chinese-style modernization.