LONDON ¨C In 1986, ¡°Anne¡± ¡ª a data entry clerk ¡ª watches an IBM PC land on her desk. Within a year, her job is gone. Four decades later, ¡°Natalie¡± ¡ª a social-media manager ¡ª looks on as ChatGPT drafts the posts she once wrote. But her exit may come even faster than Anne¡¯s.
In July, a new report from Microsoft researchers made headlines by listing the 40 occupations most at risk of being replaced by AI. It included sales reps, translators, proofreaders and other knowledge jobs, pointing to a looming white-collar employment apocalypse.
The report¡¯s authors, and the subsequent news coverage, seem to have overlooked, however, something crucial: The coming disruption will not be gender-neutral. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), women comprise the majority of workers in around 60% of the occupations listed.
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