Understanding the Strength of Self-Identified Gender, Country, and Labor Sector on the Perception of Robots in Industrial Environments

As robots pervade industrial environments, such as construction, manufacturing, and transportation, the fear of job displacement, lack of independence, and safety are natural concerns among workers. Prior survey-based research on the perception of robots in industrial environments show that education level, country of work, labor sector, self-identified gender, age, and minority status play an important role in shaping how workers view robots. When exploring demographic factors, such as gender, labor sector, or country of work, prior work has studied their impact independently. In our work we explore the strength of self-identified gender, country of work, and labor sector when it comes to a worker's sense of safety and task independence when working with a robot, fears of job safety due to the presence of robots in the workplace, and the type of assistance expected from a collaborative robot for lifting actions. We analyze responses acquired using a Google Forms online survey from 530 workers in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and United States working in construction, contract work, manufacturing, retail, transportation & delivery, and warehousing. Our results show the self-identified gender, country of work, and the labor sector play distinct and significant roles in how workers expect collaborative workplace robots to provide assistance during lifting tasks. We find that country of work significantly influences perceptions of safety, independence, and job security.