Who is afraid of machines?

We study how various types of machines, namely, information and communication technologies, software, and especially industrial robots, affect the demand for workers of different education, age, and gender. We do so by exploiting differences in the composition of workers across countries, industries and time. Our dataset comprises 10 high-income countries and 30 industries, which span roughly their entire economies, with annual observations over the period 1982-2005. The results suggest that software and robots reduced the demand for low and medium-skill workers, the young, and women