| Willy Brandt School of Public Policy

The First Publication of the PolDigWork Project Investigates Attitudes Toward New Technologies in Ghana

Using a field survey in Ghana, the Politics and the Future of Work in Middle Income Countries (PolDigWork ) project examines the motives and attitudes toward automation, robots and digitalization.

 

The survey found that Ghanaians are – all in all – very optimistic about the future of work. They see new technology in the workplace as a form of leapfrogging to curb dependence on older technologies, including landlines, postal services, and others. The study also included a survey experiment showing that priming, i.e. giving them new information about technology only works to make the even more optimistic. Negative primes such as hinting at potential job loss does not show a big impact.

The survey conducted by the PolDigWork team Evans Awuni and Prof. Dr. Achim Kemmerling also mixed standard survey questions with open-ended items. The latter allowed people to give their motivations for answering the survey. This gave further evidence for perceived advantages, but also perceived risks of new technologies in the workplace.

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