What Lies behind Rising Earnings Inequality in Urban China? Regression-based Decompositions

Deng Quheng and Shi Li ()

Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series from Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: Coupled with advances in enterprise reform and changes in the wage structure, earnings inequality in urban China has been increasing, and this has contributed significantly to rising income inequality. Using urban household survey data from the 1988, 1995 and 2002 waves of the China Household Income Project, in this paper, we decompose earnings inequality in urban China by using the regression-based decomposition methods developed by Fields (1998), Morduch and Sicular (2002) and Shorrocks (1999). The decomposition results indicate that the effects of gender and membership of the Communist Party of China on earnings inequality have changed little. While work experience had a reduced effect on earnings inequality, the effects of education and occupation have increased. The contributions of ownership status and industry to earnings inequality have increased. Regional effects have been the largest recent contributor to earnings inequality.

Keywords: earnings inequality; regression-based decompositions; urban China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 J31 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-dev, nep-lab and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://gcoe.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/research/discussion/2008/pdf/gd08-021.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: What Lies behind Rising Earnings Inequality in Urban China? Regression-based Decompositions (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hst:ghsdps:gd08-021

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series from Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tatsuji Makino ().