Job quality and automation: Do more automatable occupations have less job satisfaction and health?

Abstract

Social scientists have made predictions about the automation of jobs, as well as the negative consequences that technology has on job quality, but not how these phenomena are connected. Are occupations with a higher susceptibility of automation associated with lower job quality? This study involves an empirical examination of automation-related measures from Frey and Osborne and applies them to job quality variables (job satisfaction and self-rated health) drawn from the US General Social Survey (GSS), Quality of Working Life and Work Orientation Panel from five different waves (2002 to 2018 every 4 years; N = 7240). The finding is that highly automatable occupations have lower level of job satisfaction and health and, hence, less job quality. This has implications on the future of work, which could be but not necessarily characterised by fewer bad quality jobs.