Men’s employment has grown significantly faster than women’s in occupations most exposed to artificial intelligence, according to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center published October 22.
The gap is largely concentrated among workers without a four-year college degree.
What the research found
Artificial intelligence is transforming U.S. workplaces, with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude bringing new efficiencies to certain work tasks and automating others.
These technologies are still relatively new, and it’s too early to tell if they will lead to job loss or job growth in the long run, but there are early signs of a gender gap: employment growth has been slower for women than for men in occupations with more exposure to AI.
The analysis used Current Population Survey basic monthly files from 2017 through 2019 and January 2023 through June 2026, excluding 2020 through 2022 because the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped employment for reasons unrelated to AI. It used an AI exposure score that measures how much the technology can do or help with the tasks required in a given occupation, based on an analysis of 480 occupations and how much generative AI could perform or assist with important job tasks .
Because men’s employment grew steadily with each additional point of AI exposure, the gender gap in employment growth widened the further up the scale a job sits. Men’s employment grew about 24% more in the most AI-exposed occupations, including financial management, software development and accounting, than in the least exposed, while women’s growth was about the same across the scale and in the least exposed jobs, women’s growth outpaced men’s.
The findings do not establish that AI directly caused the difference; other economic and labor-market developments during the period may also have contributed.
Education level drives the divide
Among workers with a high school diploma or less, each additional exposure point was associated with 8.8% employment growth for men and a 9.5% decline for women , a gap of about 18.3 percentage points.
Men’s job growth surged by 6.3% for every point increase in automation exposure, while women’s barely changed at 0.2% , across all education levels combined.
For workers with some college education, a group that includes associate degree holders and people who attended college without earning a degree, the gap was smaller: men’s employment grew by 3.6% per exposure point, while women’s fell by 6%.
For workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher, neither men’s nor women’s employment changed significantly as AI exposure increased.
Why the gap matters for workers
The findings arrive as broader public anxiety about AI’s effect on employment has been climbing. A separate Pew report, released September 17, found that in 34 of 37 countries Pew Research Center surveyed earlier this year, people tend to believe AI will lead to fewer jobs rather than more jobs , reflecting widespread unease even as some sectors post hiring gains.
That broader worry echoes domestic trends GCN has reported, including concern about finding jobs recorded in a separate recent Pew survey of U.S. adults, which found the share expressing that level of concern has climbed to 48%, up from 44% in July and far above the 29% recorded in October 2022 .
The gender gap in AI-exposed occupations adds a new dimension to that conversation, suggesting that whatever job growth AI is generating in its early years is not landing evenly across the workforce.
Because the divide is most visible among workers without four-year degrees, it also intersects with longstanding patterns in how Americans without college credentials pursue skills and job changes in a fast-shifting labor market.
What Pew plans next
Pew’s short read is based on an analysis of Current Population Survey basic monthly files, government data the center used to track occupation-level employment changes by gender over time, measuring the change in the number, not the share, of people employed, comparing how the number of employed men changed within each occupation to how the number of employed women changed .
The center has signaled continued interest in AI’s labor market effects, having published multiple related reports this fall examining both public attitudes toward AI and its measurable effects on employment, including the related finding on parental and generational divides covered by GCN in its report on the growing AI gap between parents and teens.
The gap was largest among workers without college degrees, and researchers stressed that AI exposure measures task potential, not inevitable job losses, with the findings showing an association rather than proof that AI caused the employment differences.
