Jobs or money in times of sectoral change: how do policy attitudes respond to digitalization in Ghana?

Abstract How do new technologies influence public attitudes towards redistribution and social protection? This question, already much discussed for the OECD world, is underexplored for many middle-income countries (MICs). We argue that the politics of compensation under digital disruption reflects the underlying uncertainties of social protection in such contexts. Where informality is high and administrative capacity is limited, compensation demands may extend beyond monetary transfers to include jobs and job-related policies. We provide four pieces of evidence from an original survey in Ghana to substantiate this claim. Cross-sectional models show that both objective exposure to routine tasks and subjective fears of automation increase support for government intervention, with larger and more consistent effects for job creation than for monetary redistribution. A priming experiment yields modest average framing effects, but suggests that information can make risk more consequential for those who are already exposed. We then show that responsiveness to technological risk is higher among lower-skill respondents for job creation, whereas higher-skill respondents react more strongly towards redistributive demands when routine exposure is salient. Finally, open-ended responses indicate that people prioritize digital skills training and enabling infrastructure as practical routes to securing work. Our findings suggest that digital transformation reshapes the politics of compensation in MICs in ways that differ from standard OECD expectations, with implications for how technological change may widen inequalities within and across country income groups.