Industrial robots and worker health in China: evidence on sectoral heterogeneity and institutional moderation

Against the backdrop of a rising organic composition of capital driven by industrial automation, this paper examines how industrial robot adoption is associated with worker health in China and how these effects vary across groups, with particular attention to the role of labor-market institutions. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies matched with regional measures of industrial robot penetration, the analysis considers three health-related outcomes: subjective health change, objective health, and mental health. We further test the mechanisms underlying the direct health effects in manufacturing and explore the channels consistent with the cross-sector spillover patterns observed in non-manufacturing by focusing on workers' labor-market position and on the substitutability and complementarity of labor across sectors. The results indicate that, in terms of direct effects, robot adoption is associated with significant declines in all three health measures among workers in the manufacturing sector. For workers in non-manufacturing sectors, the estimates provide suggestive evidence of cross-sector spillovers, with effects differing across health dimensions. Moreover, the health consequences of robot adoption exhibit substantial heterogeneity across worker groups, suggesting uneven health effects among workers. Overall, the findings suggest that, as capital deepening reshapes labor processes, strengthening health-risk protection and improving access to medical insurance may help mitigate adverse health consequences, especially for more vulnerable workers.