The World Economic Forum (WEF) held its annual meeting in Davos earlier this month. One of the focuses for discussion—and topics covered in its Future of Jobs report—was the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” This “revolution” is a designation for the fast-developing technologies that are catalyzing job automation, creating uncertainty over the future of many job types for workers. Many people fear the effects of robots and machines with artificial intelligence on jobs. In Davos the world’s policymakers and academic elite discussed how five million jobs—including ones thought to be previously “safe” such as doctors and lawyers—could be filled by robots by 2020, with women likely to be most affected.

Our authors Richard Freeman and Marco Vivarelli have written articles on advanced technologies and the effect they will have on the labor market. Freeman, in Who owns the robots rules the world, advises that employees must be empowered to own part of the technology that will replace them, therefore creating an income for a future when their jobs may no longer exist. If this does not happen, then the top stratum of humanity who own the robots will continue to get wealthier, whilst the redundant workers may become “serfs working on behalf of the robots’ overlords.”

Vivarelli has a more positive outlook. He explains that many workers of the future will undertake jobs that we cannot even comprehend yet. In his article Innovation and employment, he suggests that although technological unemployment is a reality we have to face, technological innovation can create many jobs in whole new markets and industries. Vivarelli’s advice is “Policies should maximize the job-creation effect of product innovation and minimize the direct labor-saving impact of process innovation. R&D investments, especially in high-tech sectors, may not only foster competitiveness, but may also be an effective means of creating jobs.”

Read more about the WEF’s Future of Jobs report.

• Daniel Hamermesh to become the new Editor-in-Chief of IZA World of Labor. Read more...
• Talks to begin to prevent second doctors’ strike in England. Read more...
• India to increase maternity leave entitlement. Read more...
• Smartphone manufacturers are ignoring child labor, says Amnesty. Read more...

• Parental employment and children’s academic achievement by Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch presents the evidence on how maternal employment influences children, which is important both to parents and policy makers.
• Employee incentives: Bonuses or penalties? In his article, Daniele Nosenzo, writes that penalty contracts lead to higher productivity in workers than bonus incentives based on performance, but there are consequences.
• Gary Charness has written an article on how delegating the choice of wage setting to workers can lead to better outcomes for all involved parties. Should firms allow workers to choose their own wage? 
• Do minimum wages stimulate productivity and growth? by Joseph Sabia suggests that minimum wage increases fail to stimulate growth and can have a negative impact on vulnerable workers during recessions. 

Visit the IZA World of Labor site for more concise, informative, evidence-based articles across the spectrum of labor economics.

• The labor market consequences of impatience: There is strong evidence that some people have trouble following through on investments that best serve their long-run interests. These findings open the door to policies encouraging or requiring better behaviors, which would allow people to commit to the choices they truly want to make.
• Female education and its impact on fertility: The negative correlation between women's education and fertility is one of the strongest patterns observed across regions and time. But, its interpretation is unclear and the relationship is complex.
• Can market mechanisms solve the refugee crisis?: The unequal distribution of refugees across countries could unravel the international refugee protection system or, in the case of the EU, hinder a common policy response to refugee crises. A way to distribute refugees efficiently, while respecting their rights, is to combine two market mechanisms.
• Legalizing undocumented immigrants: While legalization benefits most undocumented immigrants, deciding how to regularize them is challenging and policies range from temporary visa programs to naturalization.