Theme：Robots, Routine Jobs, and Rural Workers: Evidence from China

Guest Speaker：Lianyi Hu (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)

Time：April 30^th, 2025(Wednesday)，10:30-11:30 am

Venue：Room 218, Business School Building

Organizer：The Department of Economics

Synopsis：

  This paper examines how rural-urban migrants in China adjust their employment and geographic locations in response to varying exposures to industrial robots. We focus on migrants originating from rural areas and employed in urban centers, typically in routine jobs involving repetitive physical tasks and facing high automation risks due to limited skills and labor market barriers. Our analysis reveals a significant negative employment effect of robots on rural-urban migrants in routine jobs, with no discernible impact on urban workers. Following displacement from routine jobs, 50% of affected rural-urban migrants return to the agricultural sector within their current prefectures, while only 2% transition to non-routine jobs. The remaining 48% choose to migrate, with 26% returning to their hometowns and 22% relocating to new prefectures. After migration, nearly all affected rural workers take on non-agricultural jobs. These findings illuminate the intricate challenges posed by technological advancements to vulnerable workers in developing countries.

Guest Bio:

  Hu Liangyi, Ph.D. in Economics from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a joint Ph.D. trainee at Harvard University. Her main research areas include labor economics, development economics, and agricultural economics, with a particular focus on the impact of technological progress on the labor market. Her research findings have been published in journals such as Economic Research Journal, China Industrial Economics, and Quantitative and Technical Economics.