Explaining women's skepticism toward artificial intelligence: The role of risk orientation and risk exposure

This article examines the gender gap in attitudes toward the adoption of AI in the workplace, with a focus on how gender differences in risk orientation and risk exposure drive skepticism toward AI's economic benefits. Using original survey data from $\sim$ 3,000 respondents across Canada and the United States, we find that women consistently perceive AI to be riskier than men. We identify two key drivers behind this gender gap: women's higher general risk aversion and their greater exposure to AI-related risks. To establish a causal relationship between risk and AI attitudes, we show experimentally that as the probability of net positive employment effects decreases, women's support for companies adopting AI falls more sharply than men's. Finally, structural topic modeling of open-ended responses confirms that women express greater uncertainty about AI's benefits and more frequently anticipate little to no benefits. Given AI's potential to exacerbate existing gender inequalities, our study highlights the critical importance of incorporating women's perspectives into AI policy-making. Policies that do not address gender-specific risks may not only reinforce existing inequalities in employment and income but could also generate political backlash against AI adoption.