Working Papers

The WNE Working Papers series has been published by the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw since 2008.

The WNE Working Papers series provides a fast, open channel for disseminating research conducted at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. The papers hosted here are working versions (pre-prints) and may evolve as authors refine their analyses, incorporate feedback, or progress through formal peer-review. What you read is the current version released by the authors, timestamped and assigned DOI/ISSN identifiers to ensure precise citation and version tracking. Copyright remains with the authors, who may, at any time, upload a revised file or add a note directing readers to a later, peer-reviewed publication.

The Working Papers series accepts articles by research employees of the Faculty and publications from conferences organised at the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw. Articles should be original research papers which have not been previously published, on the subject of economics.

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Number of Results 1

WP(26/2022)402. Industrial robots and fertility in European countries

Authors: Matysiak Anna, Bellani Daniela, Bogusz Honorata
In this study we examine whether the long-term structural changes in the labour market, driven by automation, affect fertility. Adoption of industrial robots in the EU has tripled since the mid-1990s, tremendously changing the conditions of participa…

WP402. Industrial robots and fertility in European countries

In this study we examine whether the long-term structural changes in the labour market, driven by automation, affect fertility. Adoption of industrial robots in the EU has tripled since the mid-1990s, tremendously changing the conditions of participating in the labour market. On the one hand, new jobs are created, benefitting largely the highly skilled workers. On the other hand, the growing turnover in the labour market and changing content of jobs induce fears of job displacement and make workers continuously adjust to new requirements (reskill, upskill, increase work efforts). The consequences of these changes are particularly strong for the employment and earning prospects of the low and middle educated workers. Our focus is on six European countries: Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom. We link regional data on fertility and employment structures by industry from Eurostat (NUTS-2) with data on robot adoption from the International Federation of Robotics. We estimate fixed effects linear models with instrumental variables in order to account for the external shocks which may affect fertility and robot adoption in parallel. Our findings suggest robots tend to exert a negative impact on fertility in highly industrialised regions, regions with relatively low educated populations and those which are technologically less advanced. At the same time, better educated and prospering regions may even experience fertility improvements as a result of the technological change. The family and labour market institutions of the country may further moderate these effects.


Matysiak Anna, Bellani Daniela, Bogusz Honorata
fertility employment industrial robots technological change Europe
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