Could robotization make the gender pay gap worse? We provide the first large-scale evidence on the impact of industrial robots on the gender pay gap using data from 20 European countries. We show that robot adoption increases both male and female earnings but also increases the gender pay gap. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we find that a ten percent increase in robotization leads to a 1.8% increase in the gender pay gap. These results are driven by countries with high initial levels of gender inequality and can be explained by the fact that men at medium- and high-skill occupations disproportionately benefit from robotization, through a productivity effect. We rule out the possibility that our results are driven by mechanical changes in the gender composition of the workforce.

机器人技术能否使性别工资差距变得更糟？我们使用来自20个欧洲国家的数据，提供了有关工业机器人对性别工资差距影响的首个大规模证据。我们表明，采用机器人会增加男性和女性的收入，但也会增加性别之间的工资差距。使用工具可变策略，我们发现机器人化程度提高了10％，导致性别薪酬差距增加了1.8％。这些结果是由最初性别不平等程度较高的国家所驱动的，并且可以用以下事实来解释：处于中等和高技能职业的男性通过生产率效应而从机器人技术中获得的收益不成比例。我们排除了我们的结果是由劳动力性别组成的机械变化驱动的可能性。