Whereas there are recent papers on the effect of robot adoption on employment and wages, there is no evidence on how robots affect non-monetary working conditions. We explore the impact of robot adoption on several domains of non-monetary working conditions in Europe over the period 1995-2005 combining information from the World Robotics Survey and the European Working Conditions Survey. In order to deal with the possible endogeneity of robot deployment, we employ an instrumental variables strategy, using the robot exposure by sector in other developed countries as an instrument. Our results indicate that robotization has a negative impact on the quality of work in the dimension of work intensity and no relevant impact on the domains of physical environment or skills and discretion.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused labor market disruptions at an unprecedented scale and is akin to a stress test for industrial relations institutions. Drawing on a large-scale ( = 6111) study of German employees, we empirically investigate whether and how the two institutions comprising Germany's dual system of employee representation-works councils and collective bargaining-have delivered on their protective potential and mitigated the impact of the pandemic on workers. We demonstrate that employees in representative environments fare better on a range of protective outcomes.

This article reveals the extent of international inequalities in the immediate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on participation in paid work. Drawing on World Systems Theory (WST) and a novel quasi-experimental analysis of nationally representative household panel surveys across 20 countries, the study finds a much sharper increase in the likelihood of dropping out of paid work in semi-periphery and periphery states relative to core states. We establish a causal link between such international disparities and the early trajectories of state interventions in the labor market. Further analysis demonstrates that within all three world systems delayed, less stringent interventions in the labor market were enabled by right-wing populism but mitigated by the strength of active labor market policies and collective bargaining.

We adopt a novel identification strategy to examine the heterogeneous effects of Canada's COVID-19 economic shutdown on hours worked across the earnings distribution. Early labor-market analyses found that workers in the bottom of the earnings distribution experienced a much larger reduction in hours worked than workers in the top of the earnings distribution. Our analysis reveals a double liability of low-wage work during Canada's COVID-19 economic shutdown: while workers in every quintile experienced a large reduction in hours on average, significant increases in hours were only present among workers in the bottom quintile. Implications for crisis income supports are discussed.

We evaluate the relationships among breadwinner role, performance, and pay. Differences in pay are present despite limited differences in performance. We find a pay premium for primary-breadwinner employees across gender, yet a pay penalty for secondary-breadwinners employees only for women, suggesting an asymmetric relationship among breadwinner role, gender, and pay.

Using panel data from Waves 1 and 2 of the NESARC, we estimate gender-specific effects of changes in employment status on overall alcohol consumption, binge drinking episodes, and a diagnosis of alcohol abuse and/or dependence. We employ various fixed-effects models to address potential bias from unobserved and time-invariant individual heterogeneity. All results show a positive and significant effect of unemployment on drinking behaviors and the findings are robust to numerous sensitivity tests. Perhaps macroeconomic policy decisions intended to stimulate the economy during economic downturns should also consider the avoided personal costs and externalities associated with alcohol misuse.

Despite recent interest in how psychiatric disorders affect work outcomes, little is known about the role of personality disorders (PDs), which are poorly understood yet prevalent (15%) and impairing. We used nationally representative data for 12,457 men and 16,061 women to examine associations of PDs with any employment, full-time employment, chronic unemployment, being fired or laid off, and having trouble with a boss or co-worker. Antisocial, paranoid, and obsessive-compulsive PDs demonstrated the broadest patterns of associations with adverse outcomes. Findings suggest that PDs may have implications for the productivity of co-workers as well as that of the disordered employees themselves.

Underreporting of occupational injuries was examined in four health care facilities using quantitative, qualitative, and observational data. Occupational Safety and Health Administration logs accounted for only one-third of the workers' compensation records; 45 percent of injured workers followed by survey had workers' compensation claims. Workers reported 63 percent of serious occupational injuries. Underreporting is explained by time pressure and workers' doubts about eligibility, reputation, income loss, and career prospects. Though aware of underreporting, managers subtly believe in workers' moral hazard behaviors.