The effect of artificial intelligence on China's labor market

摘要

Automation and artificial intelligence technology have played a pivotal role in today's economic and social development. They represent a labor-substituted technological progress, featuring more and more jobs to be replaced by Al. Based on the adoption rate calculated in our paper and theoretical substitution probability estimated by existing studies, our research estimates the actual substitution probability by Al for various occupations in China. By using this actual substitution probability on occupation level, we also explore the substitution effects on labor force with different characteristics and find that Al has larger substitution impacts on labors of female, old age, low education and low income. We also predict the number of employed people that would be replaced by Al in each industry, and the results show that China will have 278 million labors (201 ～ 333 million under different adoption rates) replaced by Al by 2049, representing 35.8% of the current employment in China.