Is the Covid-19 Pandemic Fast-Tracking Automation in Developing Countries? Evidence from Colombia

IF 1.6 3区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Journal of Human Capital Pub Date : 2022-10-03 DOI:10.32468/be.1209

Leonardo Bonilla-Mejía, Luz A. Flórez, Didier Hermida, F. Lasso-Valderrama, L. Morales, J. J. Ospina-Tejeiro, José Pulido

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Abstract

This paper assesses whether the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated automation in developing countries. We studied the case of Colombia, a country with low R&D and productivity and with high labor informality and unemployment. We estimated event-study models to assess the differential effect of the pandemic on job openings and salaried employment by the potential degree of automation of each occupation. Our results suggest that both vacancies and salaried employment fell more in highly automatable occupations during the pandemic and have since experienced a slower recovery. The effect of the pandemic on automation is mostly driven by sectors that were affected by mobility restrictions. We also found heterogeneous effects by age and gender. The acceleration of automation is mainly affecting the labor market for females and individuals over the age of 40. Finally, we explored the differential effect on occupations with wages around the minimum wage. We found that occupations with wages close to the minimum wage exhibit the highest effect, especially at the onset of the pandemic.

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Covid-19大流行在发展中国家是快速跟踪自动化吗?来自哥伦比亚的证据

本文评估了Covid-19大流行是否加速了发展中国家的自动化。我们研究了哥伦比亚的案例，这是一个研发和生产率较低、劳动力非正式性和失业率较高的国家。我们估计了事件研究模型，通过每种职业的潜在自动化程度来评估大流行对职位空缺和受薪就业的不同影响。我们的研究结果表明，在大流行期间，高度自动化的职业的职位空缺和受薪就业都下降得更多，此后复苏速度较慢。大流行对自动化的影响主要是受流动限制影响的部门造成的。我们还发现了年龄和性别的异质性影响。自动化的加速主要影响到女性和40岁以上的个人的劳动力市场。最后，我们探讨了工资在最低工资附近的职业的差异效应。我们发现，工资接近最低工资的职业表现出最大的影响，特别是在大流行开始时。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Human Capital ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

2.30

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Journal of Human Capital is dedicated to human capital and its expanding economic and social roles in the knowledge economy. Developed in response to the central role human capital plays in determining the production, allocation, and distribution of economic resources and in supporting long-term economic growth, JHC is a forum for theoretical and empirical work on human capital—broadly defined to include education, health, entrepreneurship, and intellectual and social capital—and related public policy analyses. JHC encompasses microeconomic, macroeconomic, and international economic perspectives on the theme of human capital. The journal offers a platform for discussion of topics ranging from education, labor, health, and family economics.