Abstract
Driven by machine learning as its core general-purpose technology, China’s artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem has formed a diversified landscape characterized by foundational technologies leading the way, application technologies advancing in parallel, and frontier exploration accelerating, with AI patents experiencing explosive growth post-2015. This study empirically examines the impact of such technological adoption—specifically represented by industrial robotics (IR)—on China’s labour market.Based on provincial panel data from 2008 to 2022, the analysis reveals that regions with high technology intensity exhibit a "high income, short working hours" pattern, whereas low-intensity regions display the opposite. Across all regions, men consistently maintain higher wages and longer working hours than women, with the gender disparity in working hours being most pronounced in low-intensity areas. Further estimation based on wage equations demonstrates that IR adoption significantly widens the gender wage gap by simultaneously amplifying disparities in both hourly pay rates and total working hours. Furthermore, this effect exhibits distinct skill heterogeneity, exerting the strongest impact on low-skilled workers and the weakest on high-skilled individuals.