Research on the Causes and Countermeasures of Gender Income Gap in the Process of Marketization Transformation

Project leader: Liu Aiyu Department of Sociology, Peking University

Starting and ending date of the project: 2017.04.01-2019.04.01

Project Description:

The main target of this study is urban and rural, working, men and women aged 18-60. The overall research framework consists of three specific research questions, the main objectives and key points of difficulty are presented below.

(1) What is the gender division of the contemporary Chinese labor market and its historical changes?

This section examines the gender segmentation by dividing the labor market as a dependent variable. According to the four published census data (1982, 1990, 2000 and 2010), the overall occupational gender distribution of the working population was obtained. Then based on the CFPS data, this paper analyzes the reasons for the urban and rural labor market segmentation (industry, department, occupation) and the historical changes of the gender segmentation of different generations of occupations and its influencing factors. The difficulty in this section is to sort out the data on occupational types and gender distribution in the four censuses, with particular attention to changes in occupational definitions in different survey years.

(2) What is the impact of family socioeconomic status and early socialization on gender segmentation in the labor market?

This section examines the differences in occupational expectations (professional socioeconomic status, prestige, and occupational gender types) and their influencing factors in terms of expected occupations. The study focuses on the relationship between family socioeconomic status differences and occupational expectations gender differences, and explores the impact of traditional gender role norms and gender division of labor on labor market segmentation; paying particular attention to the impact of family wealth inequality on children's education, and Family wealth is an opportunity for individuals to enter different occupations, thereby further discussing the impact of income differences between men and women. The difficulty in this part is to clarify the relationship between professional expectations and the actual labor market segmentation from the theory and experience.

(3) Are women who assume more responsibilities in matters such as childbirth, child care, and household responsibilities, in the case of the same human capital, are they in a more disadvantageous position in the labor market? What are the disadvantages of income, career development or other social consequences?

In this part, income is obtained as a dependent variable, and individuals are placed in the context of family, community and society. From the perspective of life history, the complex relationship between family responsibility, human capital, labor market segmentation and income acquisition is examined. The initial hypothesis of this study is that the expansion of the gender income gap stems from the imbalance of labor market segmentation and family responsibility in the context of the diminishing narrowing of gender education. One of the difficulties in this part is selectivity, whether it is too much money to bear family responsibilities, or because it takes less family responsibilities and leads to low income. There are inherent differences in the socioeconomic status and parenting style of families with different structures. The second difficulty lies in the discussion of the relationship between family responsibility and labor market segmentation. Previous studies have involved very little in this area, and it is necessary to clarify their relationship and their impact on the income of both sexes in terms of theory and experience. The third difficulty is the measurement of family responsibilities.