Generative artificial intelligence is reshaping the world of work — but not equally. A new research brief from the International Labour Organization (ILO) finds that female-dominated occupations are almost twice as likely to be exposed to AI automation as male-dominated ones, with 29% of women’s jobs at risk compared to 16% of men’s — and the gap widens sharply at the highest automation risk levels, where 16% of female-dominated roles fall into the most exposed categories against just 3% for men.
The reasons are structural. Women are heavily concentrated in clerical, administrative and business support roles — secretaries, receptionists, payroll clerks, accounting assistants — where tasks are routine and easier to automate. Men, by contrast, dominate construction, manufacturing and manual trades, where physical tasks are far harder for AI to replicate. At the same time, women make up only around 30% of the global AI workforce, barely changed from 2016, leaving them underrepresented in the very sector that stands to gain most from the technology.
“Generative AI is not entering a neutral labour market,” said Anam Butt, co-author of the ILO brief, pointing to discriminatory social norms, unequal care burdens and labour market policies that continue to push women into more vulnerable roles. When women are absent from AI development and decision-making, the technology itself tends to reproduce existing biases — with AI systems already shown to disadvantage women in recruitment, pay decisions and credit scoring.
The ILO stresses that the biggest impact of generative AI is likely to fall on job quality rather than job numbers — changing tasks, intensifying workloads and increasing surveillance. But co-author Janine Berg argues the outcome is not fixed: “With the right policies, social dialogue and gender-responsive design, we can avert reinforcing existing discrimination.”
The brief calls on governments, employers and workers to jointly shape how AI is introduced at work, embed gender equality into AI governance from the start, and expand women’s access to the skills and roles that will define the economy of the future.
