The Future of Work – How automation could affect employment for women and minorities

Much has already been said about how automation and artificial intelligence will affect employment and wages. But what about the impact of these trends on women in the workplace?

While many obstacles still stand in the way of gender parity, with the right policy actions by governments and businesses, women appear well placed to benefit from the mix of sectors, skills, and occupations that will become important as technology adoption advances.

On this point, the conclusions of McKinsey’s previous research in Germany and France were relatively encouraging: many women there work in the expanding healthcare and social-care sectors, for example, and have the sort of social, emotional, and digital skills that will be in high demand in the future.

In the United Kingdom, meanwhile, we took a closer look at granular data for different jobs and found that female-dominated occupations are, on balance, less susceptible to automation. Nonetheless, technology is likely to reduce the demand for sales, retail, secretarial, and administrative jobs—jobs that still employ a lot of women. However, the occupations that are most female-dominated—childcare, cleaning, nursing, and teaching—are among the least likely to be performed by machines (exhibit).

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at The impact of automation on employment for women and minorities | McKinsey