Type: dissertation
Abstract: The rapid diffusion of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT is reshaping labor markets, raising concerns about job displacement, skill bias, and crossoccupational mobility.Using freelancer-and market-level transaction data from a leading global online freelancing platform and applying a Difference-in-Differences framework, this study investigates how the emergence of generative AI has affected demand across occupations.The results reveal a dual impact: writing-related work, particularly lower-value contracts, experienced significant declines in demand, while AI-related services and higher-value technology contracts expanded, reflecting both replacement and reinstatement effects.These patterns indicate a skill-biased impact of generative AI, with higher-skilled freelancers gaining access to more complex, higherpaying opportunities, while lower-skilled workers face shrinking demand.Further analysis shows that freelancers who explicitly integrate AI into their services consistently achieve higher earnings than non-adopters, underscoring the importance of adaptability in the new digital economy.Beyond within-occupation effects, the study identifies a cross-occupational dynamic: as generative AI lowers technical barriers, freelancers can reposition themselves in adjacent domains-such as writers transitioning into design-related work-demonstrating how absorptive capacity facilitates occupational mobility.Together, these findings contribute to research on skill-biased technological change and the future of work by showing how generative AI simultaneously displaces, reinstates, and redistributes opportunities, amplifying inequality while favouring skilled and adaptive freelancers.
Author: Sun, Pengyao
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7216954669