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China's Urban Gender Wage Gap: A New Direction?

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Abstract

Using data from the urban household surveys of the China Household Income Project for the years 1995, 2002, 2007 and 2013, we provide consistent estimates of the gender wage gap in urban China and investigate those factors that have contributed to this gap. Similar to past studies, we find a substantial and progressive widening of the gap from 1995 to 2007. Based on new data for 2013, however, we find that from 2007 to 2013 the gender wage gap narrowed. For 2013 we estimate the gender wage gap at between 19 percent and 25 percent. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions reveal that the contributions of the differences in characteristics between women and men to the wage gap declined over time, and by 2013 the gap is largely unexplained. We identify key factors underlying the gender wage gap in recent years, specifically, individual characteristics, such as age, education, marriage, and children, as well as employment sector and occupation.

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  • Jin Song & Terry Sicular & Bjorn Gustafsson, 2017. "China's Urban Gender Wage Gap: A New Direction?," University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP) Working Papers 201723, University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP).
    • Handle: RePEc:uwo:hcuwoc:201723
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    Cited by:

    1. Xing, Chunbing & Sun, Yan, 2019. "Economic Opportunities and Gender Equity: The Migration and Education Decisions of Young Women from Rural China," IZA Discussion Papers 12311, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. İmrohoroğlu, Selahattin & Kitao, Sagiri & Yamada, Tomoaki, 2019. "Fiscal sustainability in Japan: What to tackle?," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    3. Xing, Chunbing & Yuan, Xiaoyan & Zhang, Junfu, 2022. "City size, family migration, and gender wage gap: Evidence from rural–urban migrants in China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).

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