Employment Risks and the Quality of Work in the Digital Transformation: Using the SOEP for Empirical Analysis of AI, Platform Work, and Digital Work

The digital transformation is fundamentally changing the ways people and machines work together, creating profound connections between physical and virtual worlds. New communication channels are emerging—and with them, new possibilities for flexible work practices, locations, and hours. Digitalization opens up diverse opportunities for the working world and for society as a whole, but it also bears considerable risks.

Researchers on the project are therefore pursuing the goals of:

1. Tracing how far digitalization has progressed, using special question modules from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) to analyze the prevalence of platform work, artificial intelligence, and digitalization in the workplace.

2. Producing interdisciplinary findings on two key topics in the social sciences: first, the Substitution and Growth of Employment in the Digital Workplace from the research in economics, and second, the Quality of Work and Social Inequality in the Digital Workplace from the research in sociology.

3. Conducting research in survey methodology to collect information on characteristics of digitalization from survey data and validate this information using existing data sources.

The project will provide a sound basis for evidence-based decisions on labor and social policy. By doing so, it will help to reduce the costs of the digital transformation and allow technological progress to benefit as many population groups as possible.

Funding amount: approx. 590,000 euros (SOEP/TUB).