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<p>As artificial intelligence (AI) spreads worldwide, its impact on labor markets is still unfolding and remains uncertain, yet potentially far-reaching in developing economies undergoing rapid structural transformation. This paper provides the first large-scale evidence from China, where AI investment and adoption have expanded rapidly, linking local AI labor demand to individual wage outcomes. We construct city–year measures of AI labor demand from 1.6&#xa0;million online job postings between 2016 and 2024, capturing the intensity, breadth, and diversity of AI-related hiring, and merge them with nationally representative microdata from the China Family Panel Studies (2016–2022). Fixed-effects estimates show that local AI labor demand has positive impacts on individual wages: a one-unit increase in AI demand (1,000 postings, firms, or job titles) raises wages by about 0.2–0.3%. The benefits, however, are uneven. Women experience stronger gains—about 0.5–0.7% per unit increase—while men show no measurable effect. Wage effects are largest in Western provinces and in China’s major AI-cluster cities—Jing–Jin–Ji, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and the Southwest–Central corridor—where complementary production factors and digital infrastructure are most developed. Occupational analyses further show that women’s gains are concentrated in service-oriented, less skill-intensive jobs where AI complements interpersonal and coordination tasks rather than substituting them. Overall, AI diffusion generates meaningful but unequal labor market spillovers, with wage gains concentrated among women, dynamic regions, and human–AI complementary occupations, underscoring both the opportunities of technological transformation and the challenges of achieving inclusive growth.</p>

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AI and labor market outcomes: evidence from China

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月29日

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  • Tony Fang,
  • Carl Lin,
  • Qing Liu

摘要

As artificial intelligence (AI) spreads worldwide, its impact on labor markets is still unfolding and remains uncertain, yet potentially far-reaching in developing economies undergoing rapid structural transformation. This paper provides the first large-scale evidence from China, where AI investment and adoption have expanded rapidly, linking local AI labor demand to individual wage outcomes. We construct city–year measures of AI labor demand from 1.6 million online job postings between 2016 and 2024, capturing the intensity, breadth, and diversity of AI-related hiring, and merge them with nationally representative microdata from the China Family Panel Studies (2016–2022). Fixed-effects estimates show that local AI labor demand has positive impacts on individual wages: a one-unit increase in AI demand (1,000 postings, firms, or job titles) raises wages by about 0.2–0.3%. The benefits, however, are uneven. Women experience stronger gains—about 0.5–0.7% per unit increase—while men show no measurable effect. Wage effects are largest in Western provinces and in China’s major AI-cluster cities—Jing–Jin–Ji, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and the Southwest–Central corridor—where complementary production factors and digital infrastructure are most developed. Occupational analyses further show that women’s gains are concentrated in service-oriented, less skill-intensive jobs where AI complements interpersonal and coordination tasks rather than substituting them. Overall, AI diffusion generates meaningful but unequal labor market spillovers, with wage gains concentrated among women, dynamic regions, and human–AI complementary occupations, underscoring both the opportunities of technological transformation and the challenges of achieving inclusive growth.