Abstract: In the recent ten years, the return of rural migrate labor force has been continuing, and the proportion of the return is not falling but rising while the household registration system being relaxed. At the same time, theuse of robotsis increasingly popular, there may be a causal link between the two. This paper conducts an empirical study with the data of China Household Financial Survey. The findings show that the use of robots does havea significant promoting effect on the return of rural labor force. It is found through a heterogeneity analysis that the impact of the use of robots is mainly on the young male group with lower education background in rural labor force. The result of a mechanism analysis shows that this impact includes the direct employment effect and the indirect employment effect. On the one hand, the use of robots directly reduces the employment in the industrial industry, resulting in the forced return of rural labor force engaged in industry. On the other hand, the use of robots compels the labor force flowing from the industry to the tertiary industry, which intensifies the employment competition in the tertiary industry, and indirectly increases the return probability of rural labor force in the tertiary industry. This suggests that the government should pay attention to the employment situation of the returned young groups, strengthen the risk prevention of unemployment, give full play to the energetic characteristics of the returned young groups, encourage them to actively find jobs or start their own businesses, so as to help rural economic development.

Key words: return of migrate labor force, robot, crowding-out effect