Understanding Urban Wage Inequality in China 1988-2008: Evidence from Quantile Analysis

Simon Appleton, Lina Song and Qingjie Xia

No 7101, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines change in wage gaps in urban China by estimating quantile regressions on CHIPS data. It applies the Machado and Mata (2005) decomposition, finding sharp increases in inequality from 1988 to 1995 and from 2002 to 2008 largely due to changes in the wage structure. The analysis reports how the returns to education and experience vary across wage quantiles, along with wage differentials by sex and party membership. The role of industrial structure, ownership reform and occupational change are also estimated. In the recent period, 2002 to 2008, falls in the returns to education and experience have been equalising. However, changes in every other category of observed wage differential – by sex, occupation, ownership, industrial sector and province – have served to widened inequality. The gender gap continued to rise, as did the gap between white collar and blue collar workers, and between manufacturing and most other industrial sectors.

Keywords: China; labour; wages; quantile regression; inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J42 O15 P23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2012-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-lma, nep-ltv and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: World Development, 2014, 62, 1-13

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Journal Article: Understanding Urban Wage Inequality in China 1988–2008: Evidence from Quantile Analysis (2014)
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