According to a new study led by the University of Chicago and the University of Copenhagen, there is a significant gender gap in the use of ChatGPT as a tool for work.
The authors conducted a survey of 18,000 workers in Denmark from a variety of occupations that are considered to be highly exposed to ChatGPT, the most commonly used generative AI chatbot. The authors cross-referenced the survey responses with national labor market records to understand the connection between ChatGPT usage and worker’s labor market histories, earnings, wealth, education, and demographics.
Overall, women were 16 percentage points less likely than men to have used ChatGPT in the workplace. Even when controlling for workers’ other characteristics, the gender gap in ChatGPT shrinks only slightly to 14 percentage points. Among workers with the same occupations, women were still 12 percentage points less likely to have used ChatGPT for work.
Despite this adoption gap, women were just as likely as men to report they were optimistic about ChatGPT’s time-saving potential. However, women were found to be more likely to state they don’t know how to use the generative AI tool, with 45 percent of women respondents reporting they would need more training to do so.
In addition to the gender gap in ChatGPT adoption, the authors found that older and more experienced workers were less likely to use ChatGPT. Many participants who have not adopted ChatGPT to support their work reported employer restrictions and a lack of training as reasons for not using the tool. In fields were ChatGPT could produce time-saving benefits, the authors believe firms must develop planned efforts to train workers on ChatGPT to increase productivity, ultimately contributing to economic growth.