The Evolution of Gender Earnings Gaps and Discrimination in Urban China, 1988-95

Sylvie Démurger, Martin Fournier () and Yi Chen
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Martin Fournier: CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - UdA - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, GATE - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENS LSH - Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Yi Chen: CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - UdA - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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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 1990s. 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, with 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.

Date: 2007
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00138124
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Published in The Developing Economies, 2007, XLV (1), pp.97-121

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Journal Article: THE EVOLUTION OF GENDER EARNINGS GAPS AND DISCRIMINATION IN URBAN CHINA, 1988–95 (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00138124

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