IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kan/wpaper/202502.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measurement and Decomposition Analysis of Occupational Income Inequality in China

Author

Listed:
  • Jing Yuan

    (School of Statistics, Shandong Technology and Business University, Yantai, Shandong 264005, China)

  • Teng Ma

    (Penglai Sub-branch, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited Company, Yantai, Shandong 264005, China)

  • Yinghui Wang

    (School of Statistics, Shandong Technology and Business University, Yantai, Shandong 264005, China)

  • Zongwu Cai

    (Department of Economics, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA)

Abstract

Using the China CFPS database, this paper measures the degree of intra-occupational inequality in China with the Pareto coefficient and uses the GE index to decompose the top income gap by region as well as by industry. The empirical results show that, firstly, the degree of income inequality between occupations in China has increased significantly in recent years. The provinces with a higher degree of income inequality between occupations are mostly located in the more economically developed regions in the central and eastern parts of the country, while the degree of inequality between occupations in the western part is lower. Secondly, the highest-income occupations are mainly in the manufacturing industry, with relatively high levels in the construction industry, the education sector, the wholesale and retail trade, and public administration and social organizations, while the levels in other occupations are relatively low. Lastly, the top income gap primarily originates from within industries. However, the contribution rate of the top income gap between industries is gradually increasing, while the contribution rate of the top income gap within industries is gradually decreasing.

Suggested Citation

  • Jing Yuan & Teng Ma & Yinghui Wang & Zongwu Cai, 2025. "Measurement and Decomposition Analysis of Occupational Income Inequality in China," WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS 202502, University of Kansas, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:kan:wpaper:202502
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://kuwpaper.ku.edu/2025Papers/202502.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Occupational income inequality; Pareto coefficient; GE index;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kan:wpaper:202502. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Professor Zongwu Cai (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuksus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.