  When facing threats from automation, a worker residing in a large Chinese
city might not be as lucky as a worker in a large U.S. city, depending on the
type of large city in which one resides. Empirical studies found that large
U.S. cities exhibit resilience to automation impacts because of the increased
occupational and skill specialization. However, in this study, we observe
polarized responses in large Chinese cities to automation impacts. The
polarization might be attributed to the elaborate master planning of the
central government, through which cities are assigned with different industrial
goals to achieve globally optimal economic success and, thus, a fast-growing
economy. By dividing Chinese cities into two groups based on their
administrative levels and premium resources allocated by the central
government, we find that Chinese cities follow two distinct industrial
development trajectories, one trajectory owning government support leads to a
diversified industrial structure and, thus, a diversified job market, and the
other leads to specialty cities and, thus, a specialized job market. By
revisiting the automation impacts on a polarized job market, we observe a
Simpson's paradox through which a larger city of a diversified job market
results in greater resilience, whereas larger cities of specialized job markets
are more susceptible. These findings inform policy makers to deploy appropriate
policies to mitigate the polarized automation impacts.
