This Gender Lags Behind in AI Adoption

And it could mean a wage penalty

• The potential impact of AI on the labor market is huge—but only if the technology is being adopted. Currently, women are adopting AI at significantly lower rates than men, even when accounting for occupations.
• The low rate of AI adoption among women is problematic because it can contribute to the gender pay gap. Workers in occupations?that adopt AI earn twice as much as those in occupations that do not. Even within the same occupation, workers adopting AI earn 10% more than those who do not.
• Women are overall less exposed to AI as they are underrepresented in the roles that are most exposed, like Software Engineering and Database administration. This?shields?them from some of the pressure to adopt the technology.

The potential impact of AI on the labor market is unmistakable. Whether this potential materializes has much to do with the rate at which the technology is being adopted. As we have recently shown, tech roles like Data Engineers and Database Administrators, as well as financial roles like Financial Consultants, are the most AI-exposed occupations. AI adoption is positively correlated with AI exposure, where exposure is measured as the share of activities in a job that can be done or aided by AI. Naturally, the more activities in an occupation can be done by AI, the more likely workers in that occupation are to adopt the technology.

When it comes to technology and gender disparities, we have previously shown that women are underrepresented in AI roles that are focused on developing the technology. But what about their representation in roles that are adopting the technology? We see that the disparity persists: Men are more likely to adopt AI at work than women.?

Comparing adoption rates in general, men's rates of AI adoption are double those of women’s. The major driver for this trend are differences in occupational distributions among men and women. However, even after controlling for role and exposure, we find that women are less likely to adopt AI tools by 0.7 percentage points. That is, even when men and women are doing the same job with the same activities, women are adopting AI at a lower rate. While that may seem like a small difference, given the low baseline adoption rate, this actually amounts to a 20% difference in adoption rates between men and women.

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Always a pleasure,

Lisa K. Simon | Chief Economist at Revelio Labs