Drinking in Despair : Unintended Consequences of Automation Shock in China

The side effect of technology progress on economy has been discussed frequently, but little is known regarding its health consequences. This paper examines the causal effect that automation shock intensifies problem drinking in China. By combining the national individual-level panel data of alcohol drinking with the prefecture-level robot exposure rate in China biennially during the period 2012–2018, we find that 1 unit increase in robots per 1,000 workers could induce up to 4.3 percent increase in the probability of problem drinking. The implied pattern of problem drinking is explained by negative emotions, which can be ascribed to job loss due to substitution, higher income vulnerability, and reduced organization participation, providing a few channels for the labor market shock to affect citizens’ alcohol drinking decision. This paper sheds light on the impact of automation shock and the social incentive of problem drinking, contributing to the literature about deaths of despair by emphasizing the crucial role of government in coping with exogenous shock and protecting citizens from drinking in despair, which is a salient but rarely focused topic