The Gender Wealth Gap in China

I describe the gender wealth gap in China and explore the reasons behind its expansion in recent decades. The analysis suggests that a combination of China’s 2011 Marriage Law reform and soaring housing prices contribute to this widening gap. The reform shifts the division of housing property upon divorce from an equal (50-50) distribution to one contingent upon the names registered on the housing deed, thereby conferring a wealth advantage to husbands usually registered on the housing deed. Descriptive analysis reveals that men hold more ownership of housing and wealth than women. Specifically, I demonstrate that, post-reform, husbands possess 22% more housing property share than their wives, resulting in an increased housing wealth advantage of 44,884 CNY (equivalent to 7.9 times the annual income of wives in 2010). A dynamic difference-in-differences (DID) analysis indicates that although husbands’ share of property ownership initially surged and then declined post-reform, their proportion of housing wealth continued to increase and stabilize, primarily due to the rapid rise of housing prices. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis shows a greater property share gap among rural couples but a more pronounced wealth gap among urban couples, attributed to rising housing prices in urban areas. The study concludes with a discussion of how seemingly gender-neutral policies can have gendered economic effects by interacting with traditionally gendered societal norms.