MPIDR Working Paper
From efficiency to illness: do highly automatable jobs take a toll on health in Germany?
MPIDR Working Paper WP-2024-041, 28 pages.
Rostock, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (November 2024)
Revised November 2025
Abstract
Automation transforms work at a rapid pace, with gradually increasing shares of the workforce at risk of being replaced by machines. However, little is known about how this risk is affecting workers. In this study, we examine the relationship between exposure to high automation risk at work and both subjective (self-reported health, anxiety, and health satisfaction) and objective (healthcare use and sickness absence) health outcomes of workers in Germany. We base our analysis on survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and administrative data from the Occupational Panel for Germany (2013-2022). Employing panel regression, we demonstrate that for workers, exposure to high automation risk at the occupational level is associated with lower self-reported health and health satisfaction, as well as increased sickness absence. No significant effects are observed for anxiety and healthcare use. Our heterogeneity analysis reveals only minor variations in the effects across several demographic and occupational characteristics. We also conduct multiple robustness checks (i.e., alternative model specifications and risk measures with different thresholds), with the results remaining largely consistent with our main findings.
Keywords: Germany, automation, health