The Supply and Demand Factors Behind the Relative Earnings Increases in Urban China at the Turn of the 21st Century

Gao, Hang; Marchand, Joseph; Song, Tao

doi:10.1057/ces.2012.43

Cited by 1 publication

(3 citation statements)

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“…In general, the female share in low technology industries is between 7 and 11 percentage points higher than it is in high technology industries. This is consistent with the findings of Gao, Marchand, and Song (), who used firm privatization as a within‐industry labor demand shift. They reported that the increase in demand for the less educated was biased toward female workers, while the demand for the more educated was biased toward male workers.…”

Section: Data and Descriptive Analysissupporting

confidence: 91%

“…In segregated labor markets where women are confined to low wage and low productivity occupations, the interpretation of the outcomes does not necessarily lead to Becker (1957) type of wage discrimination. The mechanisms that confine women into low wage and low productivity activities may include supply side factors, such as education, flexibility of hours, benefits, maternal leave or cultural norms about gender appropriateness of certain occupations, or demand side factors related to gender preference of the employer (Dong et al ; Gao, Marchand, and Song ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The evidence in the literature suggests that the return to education in China is higher for females relative to males (Zhang et al ). This is due to the relatively low supply of highly educated women, as fewer women have received college degrees compared to men (Li ; Gao, Marchand, and Song ). Deolalikar () argued that the higher return to education among women is related to the technology employed in the manufacturing sector.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Privatization in China: Technology and Gender in the Manufacturing Sector

Dammert

Marchand

2014

Contemporary Economic Policy

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This paper examines the impact of privatization on gender discrimination in China across firms with different technology intensities. Using a comprehensive firm-level survey, the paper identifies gender wage-productivity differentials by directly estimating the relative productivity levels of workers from the production function of firms. The panel structure of the survey is taken advantage of by following firms that were fully state-owned in the initial year, and distinguishing them from firms that were later privatized. The main results show that privatization was associated with an increase in relative productivity of female workers in high technology industries, and a reduction in relative productivity of female workers in low technology industries. Time varying coefficient results suggest that the improvements in gender outcomes in high technology industries may not be maintained in the long run as the relative wage and productivity ratios tend to deteriorate, potentially due to low supply of highly educated female workers. At the same time, outcomes in privatized low technology industries increase over time, lowering the wage and productivity gaps between male and female workers. (JEL J16, J31, P20)

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Section: Data and Descriptive Analysissupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%