How and Why the Gender Pension Gap in Urban China Decreased between 1988 and 2018

Björn Gustafsson, Peng Zhan and Hanrui Jia

Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2025, vol. 73, issue 2, 651 - 678

Abstract: In urban China, gender gaps in employment and earnings have steadily increased since the 1990s. Such gender gaps are important because pension rights and amounts are based on labor force participation and wages. However, as this study demonstrates, despite the rise in gender differences in the urban labor market, the average gender pension gap decreased between 1988 and 2018. In this paper, we describe the evolution of the fragmented pension system in urban China by using a quantitative approach that distinguishes between pension coverage rates and average benefit amounts. Additionally, we conducted a birth cohort analysis to gain further insights into the reasons for changes in the gender pension gap. We use data from the China Household Income Project and focus on individuals aged 60 years and older. Therefore, this study demonstrates how changes in China’s pension system have benefited women more than men during the aforementioned period.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/728696 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/728696 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
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:ucp:ecdecc:doi:10.1086/728696

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic Development and Cultural Change from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().