Displaced or depressed? Working in automatable jobs and mental health

Abstract

AbstractAutomation may destroy jobs and change the labor demand structure, thereby potentially impacting workers' mental health. Implementing propensity score matching on French individual survey data, we find that working in an automatable job is associated with a 3 pp increase in the probability of suffering from mental disorders. Fear of automation through fear of job loss, expectation of a required change in skills, and fear of unwanted job mobility seem to be relevant channels to explain the findings.