The Impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on Potentially Disadvantaged Groups : An Analysis of How Industry 4.0 Can Promote Decent Work and Equality for Women and Older Employees

Sammanfattning: Digitalisation, and the related idea that digitalisation will cause a technological transformation that will lead to a “fourth industrial revolution” (Industry 4.0), is a global major topic with a huge impact on many parts of our life. Related changes in the labour market are to be expected, with implications for the working conditions of employees, for example due to the introduction of robots in production areas. Current research analyses how digitalisation can impact working conditions, however, there seems to be a gap in the research related to the impact of digitalisation on working conditions of women and older employees specifically. Therefore, my aim is to analyse how digitalisation changed and can change working conditions in the manufacturing sector in a way that promotes decent work and equality for women and elderly. Considering a theoretical background of the concept of decent work, gender equality and age-related issues at work, as well as a brief historical view of the impact of industrial revolutions on working conditions, I analyse the research questions for the case of Industry 4.0 in the German manufacturing sector. Methodologically, I combine expert interviews with qualitative content analysis of publicly available documents, to get a broad view of this case. My results indicate that digitalisation was, in fact, already able to improve working conditions and promoted the integration of women and older employees in a few selected areas, especially through reducing physical demands of labour by implementing assistive digital technologies. Correspondingly, digitalisation seems to provide the tools and opportunities to further change working conditions in a way that promotes decent work and equality for women and elderly. However, when it comes to key areas of inequality and discrimination in the labour market, the horizontal segregation of the labour market for women, as well as the lack of qualification of older employees, it remains uncertain whether digitalisation will actually improve these areas. The tools, however, seem to be there, and companies seem aware of them.