Little to Lose: Exit Options and Attitudes towards Automation in Chinese Manufacturing

Abstract Recent discussions on the future of work emphasize the negative effects of labour-replacing technology on employment and wages. However, original surveys and field research show that Chinese manufacturing workers currently consider themselves the beneficiaries of technological upgrading. This paper presents quantitative and qualitative evidence from two original surveys of over 2,400 workers and 600 companies in the manufacturing sector, interviews with firm managers and workers from 76 companies, and 34 factory visits in 19 cities in southern China. It finds that insofar as labourers experience automation anxiety, local workers are more likely than internal migrant workers to worry about technological displacement and are more pessimistic about their prospects of securing comparable employment after displacement. Owing to the features and consequences of the household registration system, internal migrants have a larger set of acceptable exit options that are no worse than their status quo, contributing to their lower anxiety about automation compared to locals. These findings suggest that automation susceptibility does not directly translate into automation opposition as previously assumed; institutions can shape technological receptiveness among people who face similar threats of automation by altering their exit options.