The Evolution of Gender Earnings Gaps and Discrimination in Urban China: 1988-1995

Sylvie Démurger, Martin Fournier () and Yi Chen ()
Additional contact information
Martin Fournier: CEFC (Hong Kong)
Yi Chen: CERDI, Université d’Auvergne (France)

No 23, Working Papers from ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality

Abstract: This paper analyzes the impact of market liberalization on gender earnings differentials and discrimination against women in urban China at the beginning of the 90s. The observed stability in the overall gender earnings gap between 1988 and 1995 is shown to result from a complex set of evolutions across enterprises, earnings distributions and time. Our results highlight the interplay of opposing forces, economic reforms contributing to changes in managers’ behaviors in different dimensions. On the one hand, by bringing more competition, liberalization favored a reduction in discriminating behaviors in both urban collectives and foreign-invested enterprises; on the other hand, by relaxing institutional rules, it led to a loosening of the government’s egalitarian wage setting policies, leaving more space for discrimination in state-owned enterprises.

Keywords: gender earnings differentials; discrimination; enterprise ownership; urban China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J31 J71 O53 P23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-dev, nep-lab, nep-sea and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2006-23.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Evolution of Gender Eamings Gaps and Discrimination in Urban China: 1988-1995 (2006)
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:inq:inqwps:ecineq2006-23

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Maria Ana Lugo ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).