Survey finds women 25% less likely to use AI in the workplace than men
Studies have shown that women are more likely than men to work in jobs that are likely to be replaced by AI, yet they are 25% less likely to use AI than men.
Global Evidence on Gender Gaps and Generative AI - Working Paper - Faculty & Research - Harvard Business School
Women Are Avoiding AI. Will Their Careers Suffer? | Working Knowledge
Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure | International Labor Organization
https://www.ilo.org/publications/generative-ai-and-jobs-refined-global-index-occupational-exposure
Women are lagging behind on AI but they can catch up
https://www.ft.com/content/7f0fbd7d-011a-448d-9d23-8a8db2006df4
According to the UN report, the jobs most at risk of being automated by AI are often traditionally female roles such as secretaries and assistants, with clerical and managerial roles particularly vulnerable to being replaced by AI. The risk was 3.5% in male-dominated jobs, while it was nearly three times higher at 9.6% in female-dominated jobs. It is reported that 25% of all jobs could be affected by AI, rising to 34% in high-income countries.
Meanwhile, women are 25% less likely to use AI than men.
A study analyzing 18 surveys conducted in the United States, Sweden, China and other countries found that among more than 140,000 college students and workers, half of the men used generative AI between 2023 and 2024, while only about one-third of women did. In most surveys, the percentage of women using AI was 10 to 40 percent lower than the percentage of men, and Rembrandt Koning of Harvard Business School, who led the study, concluded, 'When you add these up, the best estimate is that there's a 25 percent difference.'
According to Koning, women may be more concerned than men about the ethical aspects of AI, fearing they could be seen as cheating by using AI technology or that their reliance on AI tools could lead colleagues to question their intelligence.
However, a separate survey of tech workers in the San Francisco area found that women were 3% more likely to use AI than men.
In addition, when Corning et al. looked at users who used ChatGPT between November 2022 and May 2024, they found that of the 200 million average monthly users who used ChatGPT on the website, only 42% were women, and only 27% of downloads of the smartphone app version of ChatGPT were women.
Koning and his colleagues suspected that this disparity was due to women being less familiar with AI tools than men, so they tried encouraging about 17,000 Kenyan male and female entrepreneurs to use ChatGPT and provide them with information on how to use it. However, they found that the gender gap still exists, with women about 13% less likely than men to try AI.
'Despite the equal opportunity to use ChatGPT, women were less likely to use the tool. This is quite shocking. If women continue to shy away from generative AI, companies could miss out on significant productivity gains and women could fall behind in acquiring valuable skills they need to succeed. It's important to create an environment where everyone can try AI and feel they won't be criticized for using it,' said Koning.
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