From self-serve checkouts to Amazon’s Alexa and now the rapid advance towards driverless cars, it’s fair to say that the robot revolution is well and truly underway. No longer do we have to look someone in the eye while we buy condoms, nor do we have to actually speak to someone to order our takeaway at the end of a long day. We're all comfortably content that it’s easier to just let a faceless machine sort it for us. The World Economic Forum (WEF) have labelled this shift towards the automation of jobs as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, but what does this actually mean in terms in terms of jobs? What happens to the people we’re too tired or too ashamed to deal with? Well, I’m afraid it’s - predictably - not great news for anyone. And it’s going to hit women harder than anyone else. Although there varying figures exist, however you look at it the predictions are scary. A report by the McKinsey Global Institute has found that by 2030 800 million jobs will be lost to automation globally. More specifically, the Institute for Spatial Economic Analysis (ISEA) estimates that twice as many women will lose their jobs to automation than men, while the WEF contends that men will face approximately one job gained for every three jobs lost, whereas women will face more than five jobs lost for every job gained.
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So why are women likely to be hit harder? Well, it’s partly because women are twice as likely to be employed in the professions that face the highest automation risk, including office and administrative roles, as well as some manufacturing and production positions. It is believed that cashiers, of which 73 per cent are women, face the biggest immediate threat, with 97 per cent of cashier jobs set to become automated within the next few years. In the USA, this equates to approximately seven million retail jobs. It's not going to help efforts towards equality either, with WEF also predicting "widening gender gaps in the workforce, as women make up a smaller share of the overall labour force".According to the ISEA, education levels are also believed to have a large influence on how safe jobs are: "Workers without a high school degree face an almost six times higher risk than those with a doctorate." The shift leaves low-skilled women, who are already increasingly ostracised in a highly educated skills market, in particular danger of long-term unemployment. Less likely to be able to approach, or to be accepted into, other career sectors, these women are in a considerably weaker bargaining position to repel the changes than those women who work in the “professional” ranks, using more specific skill-sets.However it isn't all bad news for women, because for the latter group the Fourth Industrial Revolution poses the potential for greater career progression. The World Economic Forum predicts that increased automation, particularly of household work, will also allow more educated women greater scope to “put their skills to use in the formal economy” and could even narrow gender gaps in some industries. Still, that does little to help the 7 million cashiers.
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It's not only women that will be disproportionately affected by the robot revolution; owing to differing levels of access to higher education between different ethnic groups there will also be divides along racial lines - and unsurprisingly, it is white workers that fare best. An ISEA report figures that in the US, 25 per cent more Hispanic workers than whites are set to lose their jobs to robots, 13 per cent more African Americans and 11 per cent more Asian workers. Until this educational inequality is addressed, barrier to economic and social mobility are only going to worsen.
Fortunately for some, certain careers remain more immune to the effects of the robot revolution than others, including creative industries and healthcare professions that rely on human interaction. If you're curious about how your own chances stack up, the website Will Robots Take my Job? now allows users to check how safe their job is by assessing various professions on their the perceived likelihood of them becoming automated in future - it's good news if you're a therapist, but if you're library assistant then it might just be best to assume that ignorance is bliss.
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The fact is, that humans are no match for the productivity of a machine; nor do they demand breaks or holidays or compassionate leave. They're cheaper and more effective, and business is about bucks, after all. But at the end of the day, we also have to look at our own input in creating this situation. It’s us that still feel squirmy buying condoms from another human despite being actual adults, it’s us that decide we're too tired to talk to a human for the 30 seconds it takes us to say "two chicken kormas please". It’s because of our demand for the equal pepperoni spread that Domino’s are currently trialling a machine that will make the "perfect" pizza and in doing so, essentially make their workers irrelevant. So next time you’re in the supermarket, choose the (wo)man not the machine - because they might not be there for too much longer. And they really don't care what's in your basket.
