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Distributional employment impacts of renewable and new energy–A case study of China

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  • Cai, Wenjia
  • Mu, Yaqian
  • Wang, Can
  • Chen, Jining

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to argue for the necessity and significance of studying the distributional employment impacts of renewable and new energy development (RNE). Based on the comprehensive review of the methodology and conclusions of existing literatures, this paper builds up an extended input–output model to study RNE’s distributional employment impacts on gender and personnel structure. The case study of China׳s power sector in this paper affirmed earlier doubts that RNE development will indeed aggravate the gender inequality problem and add to the level of mismatch between the structure of labor demand and supply, causing structural unemployment problems. The quantitative analysis in this paper outlined here implies that from 2011 to 2020 the development of RNE will bring about 7 million employment gains, but only 81.8% of which can be realized due to the mismatch problem. The study of China may alert other countries to be less-optimistic about RNE’s employment impacts and reaffirm the need to carry out the distributional employment impacts analysis. This paper concludes with policy suggestions such as providing suitable training and equal promotion opportunities for women, offering courses and vocational trainings to RNE-related majors, in order to reduce the structural unemployment problem and further speed up the development of RNE.

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  • Cai, Wenjia & Mu, Yaqian & Wang, Can & Chen, Jining, 2014. "Distributional employment impacts of renewable and new energy–A case study of China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1155-1163.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:39:y:2014:i:c:p:1155-1163
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2014.07.136
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