Gender-oriented statistical discrimination theory: Empirical evidence from the Hong Kong labor market

Yip, Chi Man; Wong, Roderick

doi:10.1016/j.rssm.2013.11.004

Cited by 16 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…We use a simple measure of sex composition by occupation, the percent of female workers in the total number of workers within the same 14 There are 73 occupations (2-digit code) in total in the 2005 mini-census. We are unable to replicate significant interaction between occupational sex segregation and ASFR found in the original analyses by Yip and Wong (2014). This may be due to a relatively low level of sex segregation among young Chinese workers relative to their counterparts in Hong Kong.…”

Section: Methodscontrasting

confidence: 68%

“…whereas the negative influences of ASFR are invisible in the other two occupations. The insignificant coefficients of ASFR on women in managerial and professional positions are not consistent with the model prediction by Yip and Wong (2014) that the more productive the female worker is, the greater will be the impact of fertility rate on wage. We suspect that young women in managerial and professional occupations in general may enjoy more flexible and generous work conditions and benefits to partly mitigate the negative impact associated with aggregate fertility.…”

Section: Supplemental Analysesmentioning

confidence: 60%

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Gender-oriented statistical discrimination: Aggregate fertility, economic sector, and earnings among young Chinese workers

Wang¹,

Wong²

2019

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Previous studies usually attribute residual gender pay gap net of human capital, job characteristics, and family responsibilities to discrimination against women, without directly exploring the underlying discriminatory mechanisms that generate gender inequalities in the labor market. By applying and extending the statistical discrimination model proposed by Yip and Wong (2014) to post-socialist urban China, we examine how age-specific fertility rate (ASFR)—as a proxy for the likelihood of women taking maternity leave—affects the earnings of young working women and men in urban China, as well as its differential impact across economic sectors. Using data compiled from a random sample of the 2005 one-percent mini-census of the People’s Republic of China, our analyses confirm that ASFR has a significant negative influence on the wages of young women, but not among young men. More importantly, such negative impact is limited primarily to private sector female workers, negligible in state-owned and collective enterprises, and even reverses to positive impact among female workers in government agencies and public institutions. Our findings suggest that private-sector employers use aggregate fertility to “evaluate” potential training and replacement costs and the productivity of female workers associated with maternity leave, thereby reinforcing persistent stereotypes and discrimination against women at the workplace.

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Section: Methodscontrasting

confidence: 68%

Section: Supplemental Analysesmentioning

confidence: 60%

Gender-oriented statistical discrimination: Aggregate fertility, economic sector, and earnings among young Chinese workers

Wang¹,

Wong²

2019

Preprint

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“…Women of childbearing age, irrespective of current parental status, could be discriminated against with respect to men (Gupta and Smith, 2002;Petit, 2007;Yip and Wong, 2014;Baert, 2014;Biewen and Seifert, 2016;Becker et al, 2019;Jessen et al, 2019): we name this our family-risk hypothesis. Under statistical discrimination, therefore, we do not expect a motherhood penalty.…”

Section: Statistical Discrimination: Risk Aversion Against Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender, Parenthood, and Hiring Intentions in Sex-Typical Jobs: A Survey Experiment

Mari¹,

Luijkx²

2020

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We ran a survey experiment with Dutch employers to investigate hiring discrimination in sex-typical jobs. We ask if women are especially discriminated against when they have children, whether discrimination applies similarly in different occupations, and whether statistical discrimination or status-characteristic theories best account for discriminatory practices (if any).Employers rate fictitious candidates for either a female-typical job (primary-school teacher) or a male-typical job (software engineer). Employers are found to display a slight preference for female candidates when filling a teacher post, although such bias is less strong for female applicants with children. No such ranking is found for a software engineer vacancy, nor do we find different salary offers across candidates and across vacancies. Employers do not appear to favour men over women for positions likely to be on the career track, as predicted by statistical discrimination theories, nor do they expect women to be less capable than men, as posited by status-characteristic theory. Female candidates with children, however, are expected to be less committed to their job and work fewer hours, especially in the teacher experiment. Such expectations seem to have small consequences for the hiring decisions and salary offers Dutch employers make in our study.

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“…First, the market-oriented reforms in the allocation of labour may weaken occupational segregation such that women move from 'overcrowded' 'female occupations' to 'male occupations', which would induce an increase in women's wages and narrow the gender wage gap accordingly. Secondly, increase in women's educational attainment and labour participation rate will result in narrowing of the gender wage gap in two ways, namely, improvement in women's endowments, and decrease in statistical discrimination, which is assumed to be originating from the anticipation of differences in gender average productivity (Yip & Wong, 2014). Thirdly, socio-cultural changes generally benefit women immensely, improving their social status, enhancing their professional identity, and most importantly narrowing the gender wage gap by weakening the employer, customer and peer-worker's discriminating preference against women (Becker, 1985).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in gender wage differentials in China: a regression and decomposition based on the data of CHIPS1995–2013

Zhao¹,

Zhao

Chou³

et al. 2019

Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja

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Following the enactment of the Labour Law in 1995, China's urban labour market witnessed a divergence in both gender wage gap and discrimination against female workers before 2007, and thereafter a convergence in both. Contributions of endowment differentials between male and female workers to wage gap were diminishing because of the consistent improvement in the female workers' endowments. Discrimination against women, on the other hand, kept increasing and exceeded that of endowment differentials and eventually became the dominating contributor by 2002. Driven by the optimisation of female workers' endowments, the execution of new labour market legislation, the transformation of previously limitless labour supply into shortage, as well as the reform of income distribution policies, a long-term trend of convergence in both gender wage gap and discrimination has been forming. China has been striding forward into a society with more equity and justice ever since 2007.

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Gender-oriented statistical discrimination theory: Empirical evidence from the Hong Kong labor market

Cited by 16 publications

References 22 publications

Gender-oriented statistical discrimination: Aggregate fertility, economic sector, and earnings among young Chinese workers

Gender-oriented statistical discrimination: Aggregate fertility, economic sector, and earnings among young Chinese workers

Gender, Parenthood, and Hiring Intentions in Sex-Typical Jobs: A Survey Experiment

Changes in gender wage differentials in China: a regression and decomposition based on the data of CHIPS1995–2013

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