At a moment when policymakers are putting increased efforts into tackling gender gaps in the labour market, it is worth asking whether robotization could worsen pay disparities between men and women. Using new evidence from 20 European countries, this column finds that men at medium- and high-skill occupations disproportionately benefit from robotisation, especially in countries where gender inequality was already severe. The authors recommend that governments pay attention to automation’s distributional issues, and increase their efforts to equip women and men equally with the skills most relevant for future employability.
https://voxeu.org/article/robots-and-gender-pay-gap-europe
Previous studies have shown that saving rates are influenced by, among other things, demographics and income, but much of the difference in saving rates across societies remains unexplained. This column uses data covering three generations of immigrants in the UK to demonstrate that culture is an important explanation for cross-country differences in saving behaviour. When designing incentives to save, culture should therefore be taken into account.
three main priorities the political-Left should be focused on in the aftermath of the financial crisis: they must produce new ideas if they are to supplant neo-liberal ideology, properly express their aims in order to effectively communicate with the electorate, and focus on organising capital rather than labour.