Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor? Examining the Gender Pay Gap across the Wage Distribution in Urban China, 1987-2004

Wei Chi () and Bo Li ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Using 1987, 1996, and 2004 data, we show that the gender pay gap in the Chinese urban labor market has increased across the wage distribution, and the increase was greater at the lower quantiles. We interpret this as evidence of the “sticky floor” effect.We use the reweighting and recentered influence function projection method proposed by Firpo, Fortin, Lemieux (2005) to decompose gender pay differentials across the wage distribution. We find that the gender differences in the return to labor market characteristics, also known as the “discrimination effect” or “unexplained gender pay gap”, contribute most to the increase in the overall gender pay gap. The Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux method allows us to further decompose the gender pay gap into the contribution of each individual variable. We find that the “sticky floor” effect may be associated with a particularly low paid group of female production workers with relatively less education working in non-state owned enterprises.

Keywords: glass ceiling; sticky floor; gender pay gap; wage distribution; Influence Function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-05
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 (1)

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