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This paper investigates the changes of gender wage gap in urban and rural areas and examines the effect of wage structure and unobserved characteristics on the gap by using the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) survey in 2013 and 2018. We document a significant increase of the gender wage gap in both areas as well as among rural‐to‐urban migrants. By applying Katz and Murphy's supply‐demand framework, we find that the demand has shifted toward younger, more educated workers, and the demand for male workers is higher than that for female workers during the time. The Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition of gender wage gap suggests that factors, such as occupation, parenthood status, and industry, have contributed to the expansion of wage gap. Furthermore, the Juhn–Murphy–Pierce decomposition of the change in gender wage gap implies that the expansion is owing to rising discrimination against females and gender‐specific factors such as observed and unobserved characteristics that have performed unfavorably for females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature explores the effect of higher education on the urban–rural divide in China. Despite an increasing number of rural students gaining access to college, little is known about their performance in college or their job prospects after graduation. Using nationally representative data from over 40,000 urban and rural college students, we examine rural students' college performance and estimate the impact of rural status on students' first job wages in comparison to their urban peers. Our results indicate that once accepted into college, rural students perform equally as well, if not better, than their urban counterparts. Additionally, we discovered that rural students earn a 6.2 per cent wage premium compared to their urban counterparts in their first job after graduation. Our findings suggest the importance of expanding access to higher education for rural students, as it appears to serve as an equalizer between urban and rural students despite their significantly different backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study estimates union wage premiums and analyzes the influence of trade unions on the wage gap between rural migrants and local urban workers in China by employing the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method based on national longitudinal survey data from the China Family Panel Studies (2010-2018). The results indicate that the union wage premium among rural migrant workers is greater than that among local urban workers. The disparity in union density widens the wage gap, whereas the difference in union wage premiums narrows the wage gap between the two groups. Moreover, the contribution rate of the former is greater than that of the latter. These results suggest that expanding union coverage among rural migrant workers could effectively contribute to reducing the wage gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teacher shortage is a critical issue in many rural areas around the world. This paper presents the findings of two studies that investigated the impact of financial incentives on teacher attraction and retention in rural schools in Western China. Using the theory of compensating wage differentials and a mixed-method approach, we found that providing living subsidies to student-teachers has an impact on teacher attraction but not retention, while tuition fee and loan reimbursements have a positive impact on both attraction and retention. For teachers already teaching in rural schools, the amount of the living subsidy, satisfaction with the policy, and identification of the policy are the key factors that affect the success of the policy. We argue that for the subsidy amount to be effective, it should be based on feedback from rural teachers and be at least 15% of their monthly salary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wage gap between people with disabilities (PWD) and people without disabilities (PWOD), which discourages PWD from entering the labor market, is attributed to two factors: productivity differences and discrimination effects. To determine whether PWD in China face wage discrimination in the labor market and which factor contributes more to the disability-related wage gap in China, this study uses Chinese Household Income Project data (years 2007 and 2013) to estimate disability-related wage discrimination, decomposing the wage gap between PWD and PWOD using the Oaxaca-Blinder and Neumark approach. The findings demonstrate the presence of disability-related discrimination in China, accounting for approximately 38.9%-52.4% of the wage gap between PWD and PWOD. Unobservable productivity effects contribute more to the wage gap than does disability-related discrimination. Male PWD living in rural areas and less educated people are more likely to experience wage discrimination in China. Moreover, individuals with disabilities in rural areas experience significant disability-related discrimination, whereas no such phenomenon is observed in urban or migrant populations. Future human resource management policies should consider antidiscrimination measures and improve the productivity of PWD, including providing reasonable accommodation for PWD in the workplace and ensuring equality in job searches and employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Management & Organization Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The rapid ascent of digital platforms and the gig economy has prompted concerns about the gender pay gap. The results show that in the gig economy, gender continues to be a crucial determinant of workers' earnings, with women earning 85% of what men earn on a monthly basis. Nevertheless, in comparison to the traditional waged employment during the same period, the gender pay gap in the gig economy has narrowed. While some gig jobs (e.g., ride-hailing services, delivery services, online education) exhibit certain occupational segregation, women in gig economy work are no longer concentrated in low-paying roles, thereby challenging the occupational crowding hypothesis prevalent in traditional employment. In the gig economy, the vast majority of the gender pay gaps arise from factors within occupations, and occupational segregation only has a very limited impact on the earnings gap. Additionally, the gender pay gap among platform gig workers can be mostly explained by observable factors, which implies that compared to traditional employment, the gig economy exhibits a lower level of implicit gender discrimination in China. Finally, we investigate new factors that determine the gender pay gap in the gig economy. Women exhibit a stronger aversion to algorithmic control, a preference for job flexibility, and a tendency toward more isolated and less socially interactive work environments—all of which serve to widen the gender pay gap that might have otherwise narrowed. The results of this research suggest that despite the criticisms surrounding the gig economy, it continues to exert a positive influence on China's labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We specify a correlated random effect model to study inter-industry wage differentials using a small sample of Chinese firm level panel data. We find workers in real estate industry and computer and software industry enjoy a wage premium, and firms located in western areas pay less. Firm size, and the indicator of CEO also holds the position of general manager are positively related to earnings, while the annual pay for the high-level manager, stock shares held by the general manager, and low human capital endowments of workforce negatively impact wage. We find the profitability of a firm does not affect the average annual pay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dispersed pay is becoming a ubiquitous phenomenon among organizations worldwide. However, whether this phenomenon is beneficial or detrimental remains debatable. To address this question, the current study adopted the perspective of social comparison theory and elucidated the different effects of vertical and horizontal pay dispersion on employees' job performance. Data concerning 267 full-time employees in China were collected. The results revealed that vertical and horizontal pay dispersion had opposing correlations with job performance, although both relationships were mediated by upward assimilative emotions (UAE) and downward contrastive emotions (DCE). Specifically, vertical pay dispersion positively predicted job performance via increased UAE and decreased DCE, whereas horizontal pay dispersion negatively predicted job performance via decreased UAE and increased DCE. The present study contributes to the compensation literature by providing a common theoretical framework that can explain the divergent associations between vertical and horizontal pay dispersion on the one hand and job performance on the other. The findings of the present study can inform organizational practices. Limitations of the current study and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study extends recent research on the social determinants of the preferences for distributive disparities. We drew on a recent survey of more than 58,000 participants from 335 large cities in mainland China and measured pay differentials with a vignette experiment about allocating bonuses between two secretaries of different performance levels. Our ordinal regression models adjust for city-level random effects and exploit variation in early-age exposure to the incentives for educational competition across 840 admission district-by-cohort sample groups. Our results show that a higher incentive for long-term educational competition is associated with higher levels of legitimate pay differentials among all groups except the highest-status group, thereby narrowing the status gap. A stronger competitive intensity apparently fosters system justification among the majority lower-status groups but ostensibly does not affect legitimation among the top-status group. This heterogeneity in the effect is (a) unconfounded by personal income rank, provincial gross domestic product, local wealth inequality, and opportunity for college enrollment; and (b) robust to alternative measures of incentives for competition, subdivisions of status groups, nonparametric causal inference, and weighting for sample representativeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Technology Economics is the property of Chinese Society of Technology Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Transformations in Business & Economics is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The idea that the wage gap (W.G.) between the public sector (P.U.S.) and private sectors (P.R.S.) has widened is a point of contention among scholars, but to date, there has been no systematic discussion of changes in the W.G. and their causes in China. This article combines data from China's Urban Household Survey (U.H.S.) for 2004, 2008 and 2013 to examine changes in between-sector W.G.s and identify the causal factors by wage decomposition methods. Using ordinary least squares and a Heckman sample selection model, this study finds that public-sector workers consistently earn more than private-sector workers and that the W.G. is expanding, especially in upstream industries where state-owned enterprises (S.O.E.s) have monopoly status. In addition, the Oaxaca–Blinder (O.B.) decomposition method is adopted to reveal that the characteristic effect is the main cause of the W.G. Further, the regression and decomposition of the recentered influence function show that the effect of characteristics and coefficient effects differ across wage quantiles. This article indicates that the intersectoral W.G. in China is widening mainly as a result of differences in labour endowments and provides evidence to support government decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we construct an incentive model under which the optimal wage incentive scheme is a linear contract. This linear incentive contract can induce truth telling by workers about their inefficiency types and promote optimal efforts by them. We use the non‐parametric kernel estimation method to estimate the model primitives to analyse the insufficient efforts in the Chinese labour market. The empirical results based on data collected from the China Health and Nutrition Survey show that efficient male workers in white‐collar occupations do not exert sufficient efforts in the Chinese labour market. And wages for male workers in white‐collar occupations are undervalued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China's population continues ageing, and the birth rate continues decreasing, the demographic dividend that the nation once had is gradually fading. Meanwhile, information technology is rapidly developing, and new forms of employment continue emerging, facilitating the diversification of China's traditional employment forms. This study investigates how the diversified employment environment affects labour competitiveness in China from the specific perspective of gender difference. From a theoretical standpoint, we examine the mechanism of informal employment on men's and women's employment decisions and labour market competitiveness. We then construct a multi-value labour supply decision model and a nonlinear employment difference decomposition model to identify the key factors that affect individuals' employment decisions, assessing those factors in terms of gender differences. We use microdata from the China Family Panel Studies, finding that women's labour competitiveness is lower than that of men. Family factors have a significant influence on women's decisions regarding labour market participation, informal employment provides more options for women to balance occupational life and homecare, and severe gender discrimination and inequality are the primary obstacle to women's entering the informal employment sector. In analysing these impacts, we seek to provide insights regarding how to elevate women's competitiveness in the labour market, particularly in the informal employment sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital economy has increased the competitiveness of economies worldwide, accelerated dramatic changes in employment trends, and driven the rapid growth of flexible employment in China. We use micro survey data from the China General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2018 to empirically analyze the income competitiveness differences under different flexible employment modes in the context of the digital economy as well as the differences in income competitiveness between genders, and deconstruct the differences. It is found that the development of digital economy improves income competitiveness in the flexible employment market. The income competitiveness of the digital flexibly employed is higher than that of the traditionally flexibly employed. And in terms of gender differences, females benefit more from digital flexible employment modes. Moreover, the self-employed have higher income competitiveness than the regularly employed, especially the digital flexible selfemployed. Finally, in the context of the rapid development of the digital economy, there is a two-tier structure in the flexible employment labor market, and the wage penalty suffered by flexible workers at the bottom of the wage distribution is greater, which increases the internal income gap of flexible workers and exacerbates the income polarization. Therefore, public policies should focus on enhancing the employment competitiveness of flexible employment workers in the low-income quantile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of digital transformation on pay gap between executives and employees using a large panel of listed companies in China spanning 2013–2020. Baseline results show that digital transformation of enterprises can largely increase the pay gap. Mechanism tests show that the digital transformation of enterprises increases the income of executives and ordinary employees, and the income of executives is increasing faster than ordinary employees. Furthermore, employee's skill level is an important influence mechanism of the effect of digital transformation on within pay gap. Heterogeneity analysis finds that this effect is more pronounced in firms with fierce industry competition, traditional firms, large firms, and firms with lower shareholdings of executives. Lastly, we find that the pay gap induced by digital transformation enhances corporate performance. Overall, this study complements the determinants of compensation structure from a new perspective of digital transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates sectoral contributions to the trend of national wage share, or the labor income share, during 2000–2014 in China. I apply the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) decomposition, the method widely used in energy studies, to decompose the trend of the wage share. At a sectoral level, with rapid structural transformation, structural change negatively impacted the wage share through the between-sector effect – the structural and price effects – mainly from agriculture. This result confirms Arthur Lewis's hypothesis that structural transformation has a negative contribution to the wage share. At a national level, when the wage share declined before 2008, the between-sector effect was as significant as the within-sector effect – the wage and productivity effects. After 2008, the within-sector effect directed the increasing wage share trend. This implies that although structural transformation matters to the wage share in a large developing country like China, a wage-productivity nexus has been more influential and determined the increasing trend of the wage share since 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how fundamental crash prediction models perform in mainland China's fast-growing equity markets. We apply three families of fundamental models, price-to-earnings ratio, cyclically adjusted price-toearnings ratio, and bond-stock earnings yield differential, to the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock indices. Our statistical analysis supports the dominant view that Chinese equity markets behave different from U.S. markets. We find that fundamental models are significant predictors of equity market crashes in China despite these differences. Finally, we show how to use these crash prediction models to improve active portfolio management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the further reforms of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), urban China has experienced an evident increase in wage inequality. Using provincial-level data for the period 1993–2013 and individual-level data from five waves of the China Household Income Project from 1988 to 2013, this paper investigates how the SOE reform affects wage distribution in urban China by considering three mechanisms: wage determination, ownership structure and institutional segmentation. The results of this study show that overall inequality increased with the reduction of SOEs' share in the economy. Moreover, through a detailed Oaxaca–Blinder re-centred influence function decomposition, this experiment obtains consistent and robust results. Based on the theory of soft budget constraint, this study demonstrates that the increase in urban wage inequality has been mainly caused by wage structure effects. Since the SOE reform in the 1980s, the wage determination mechanism has changed with the increase in the return of the labour force to education. During this period, institutional segmentation was of less significance in explaining the wage gap between SOEs and non-SOEs. Furthermore, the accelerating ageing process of China's population had no significant effects on the trajectory of urban wage inequality throughout this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper presents Oaxaca-Blinder and Machado-Mata decomposition of the wage premium for CPC members in China. • We find positive wage discrimination for party members throughout the entire period. • In 1995 and 2002 this was due to characteristics. The party selected the elites to join its ranks. • In 2013 and 2018 it was also due to pure discrimination. The party was infiltrated by opportunists seeking financial gain. • Pure discrimination was stronger for party members in higher income quantiles. We analyze the evolution of explained and unexplained differences in wages between members of the Communist Party of China and non-members across more than two decades (1995–2018). We apply the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method to disentangle the contribution to the wage gap of different levels of human capital from discrimination against non-members. We also run quantile regressions to estimate the slope of the wage premium functions applying the Machado-Mata decomposition. Our results show that the party wage premium has decreased over time, but it is still high. Our novel finding is that a positive discrimination for members of the Chinese communist party (not justified by characteristics) started in 2013 and dominates in 2018. Whilst before the party has recruited elites and paid them fairly for their qualifications, party members are now positively discriminated, and this may attract opportunists more than elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using nationally representative data from the 2017 National Internal Migrants Dynamic Monitoring Survey, this paper examines the nexus between social integration and the political participation of internal migrants in China. We document a positive association between social integration status and internal migrants' political participation. The study further examines the political participation differentials from two perspectives: between migration types and between migration distances. Our Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition analysis suggests that while only about 5.2% of the political participation differential between urban‐to‐urban migrants and rural‐to‐urban migrants is attributable to the difference in social integration status, the difference in social integration status explains about 12.0% of the participation gap between intra‐provincial migrants and inter‐provincial migrants. Our findings suggest that regionally diverse social integration policies may have unintended consequences for the political participation of migrant workers in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Since 1978, China has made tremendous economic achievements through industrial upgrading. However, these achievements are accompanied by an expanding income gap between rural and urban areas. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between industrial structure and urban–rural income inequality in China. Design/methodology/approach: Using the fixed-effects model and provincial data for the period 1985–2019, this paper estimates a linear relationship between industrial structure and urban–rural income inequality. By decomposing total income inequality into four components, the paper then analyzes how industrial structure affects each component. Findings: The results show that industrial structure imbalance and industrial upgrading are positively associated with urban–rural income inequality. The positive effect of industrial imbalance mainly comes from widening the wage gap, while that of industrial upgrading mainly comes from aggravating business income inequality and property income inequality. Moreover, industrial balance and upgrading are conducive to increasing the share of wage income at the cost of property income. Originality/value: By progressively examining the total inequality and the inequality of income components, this paper provides a better understanding of how industrial structure affects urban and rural income inequality. The findings of this study highlight the "inequality cost" associated with industrial structure adjustment, which provide policy-related insights on the balance development of urban and rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-tier earnings structures have recently received renewed attention in the context of labour market reform, but relevant evidence for emerging economies is lacking. Relying on four waves of repeated cross-section individual-level micro data and Oaxaca-type earnings decompositions, this study investigates the interplay between the tightening of employment protection legislation in China through the introduction of the Labour Contract Law in 2008 and the earnings gap between covered and uncovered urban workers. It shows that in urban China average monthly earnings are significantly higher for workers with as compared to those without an employment contract and documents that labour market reform went hand in hand with a doubling in the log earnings gap. As there were no newly emerging differences in observable characteristics between the two groups of workers, this doubling was entirely due to reinforced impacts of differences in workers' observable characteristics on earnings. Results are consistent with prominent theoretical models of a two-tier labour market, complement existing results for Europe and are robust to a wide range of alternative specifications, including those that addresses selection into labour force participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To identify the high-wage industries, this paper used a logarithmic income regression function to determine which industry pays a higher wage after controlling for productivity and other personal characteristics. If the non-market factors consolidating the entry barriers can be reduced or even eliminated, then the high income from monopoly industries can be controlled, making inter-industrial income inequality no longer an important source of overall income inequality. Who Entered the High-wage Industries in China?. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Transformations in Business & Economics is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the effects of privatizing China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) on wage distribution and the welfare of the economy. Privatizing profitable SOEs can narrow wage inequality and improve welfare, and it is however accompanied by a business dynamism effect that can widen the skilled-unskilled wage gap. Using China's split share structure reform in 2005 as a quasi-natural experiment, we empirically demonstrate for profitable SOEs a positive relationship between partial privatization and wage gap. Our findings are consistent with the plan to wind down unprofitable SOEs that would not survive without government subsidies. • This paper examines the effects of privatizing China's SOEs on wages and welfare. • Privatization accompanied by firm entry can widen the skilled-unskilled wage gap. • Predictions regarding the distributive effect of privatizing SOEs are confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a large literature examining the effects of agglomeration on income distribution but less is known about its effects in developing countries. In this study, we apply panel data from a microfirm‐level survey and from city‐level data to investigate whether there is a causal relationship between agglomeration and establishment wage dispersion in China. Given the potential endogeneity of city size, we employ an instrumental variable regression approach. We find strong evidence that agglomeration has significant effects on wage inequality in the short and long run. The link between agglomeration and wage inequality is heterogeneous across regions. The spatially varying results appear to be due to different stages of development. Our results are consistent with the sorting models in that it appears that the most productive and least productive firms are relatively thriving in coastal cities, but not inland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The remarkable economic growth in contemporary China is unprecedented, but scholars voice concerns regarding unintended consequences during this transitional phase. Of particular concern is the constant challenge to staff schools with highly qualified teachers. Purpose: This study sets out to understand subtle yet consequential changes in schools during a sustained period of economic boom, through the lens of teacher occupational choice. This study contributes empirically to the teacher occupational choice literature by identifying the magnitude of lag in wage growth and returns to human capital in the teaching profession, and their critical relationship affecting high-ability workers' career decisions. Research Design: Using a nationally representative repeated cross-sectional data set spanning a quarter century (1988-2013), this study estimates Mincer earnings function regression models and multinomial probit regression models to assess wage differentials and heterogeneous rates of return to human capital in teaching and nonteaching sectors, in addition to untangling complex relationships between worker quality and observed occupational choice. Findings: We documented several novel facts about teachers in contemporary urban China. First, we found sharp shifts in the relative career attractiveness of teaching, such that a 13% wage premium for teachers in 1988 dissipated over time and regressed to a 11% wage penalty in 2013, when compared with similar workers. Second, returns to tertiary education are markedly higher in nonteaching careers--about 11-15 percentage points more so than in teaching. Third, highly educated workers in younger cohorts are half as likely to become teachers relative to older cohorts, particularly in recent years. Conclusions: The authors contextualize findings and discuss appropriate policy implications. Most importantly, holding back teacher wage levels from broader market prices has consequential effects on teacher supply. Policy makers need to reconsider existing forms of teacher compensation arrangements and develop sustainable wage dynamics that can attract and retain bright minds to enter and stay in teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to decompose the composition effect and wage structure effect of the gender starting pay gap in Chinese university graduates at every quantile. The article aims to determine if the pay gap at every quantile is a result of gender characteristics difference, or the differences in returns to those characteristics. A 2007 Chinese university survey of new graduates employment and capacity conducted by an education research company MyCOS institute is used. This article exploits a counterfactual decomposition analysis using quantile regression to decompose the gender pay gap into one component that is based on differences in characteristics and one component that is based on differences in coefficients across the log wage distribution. We find that the majority of the gender pay differential is attributed to the gender difference in the endowment of human capital and the composition effect explains 30–60% of the pay difference at each quantile of the log wage distribution. It means that female graduates have almost the same rewards to characteristics as their male counterparts, especially at the bottom of the log wage distribution. We also find that female graduates have lower mean work capacity than male graduates and work capacity is positively related with wage. This article provides policy implications on how to reduce the gender pay gap after higher education reform in a transition economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is still an ongoing debate regarding the firm performance implications of pay gaps between top executives and subordinate employees. This study integrates relative deprivation theory and tournament theory to investigate the potential nonlinear effects of pay gaps. We expect that at low levels of pay inequality, increased inequality hurts firm productivity, while at higher levels of pay inequality, increased inequality helps firm productivity. Our study of Chinese firms confirms that pay gaps have an approximately U-shaped relationship with firm performance. This nonlinear relationship is weaker in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) than in non-SOEs, suggesting that state ownership is an important moderator in the association. Overall, this study explains previous mixed findings regarding consequences of pay gaps with meaningful implications for policymakers and entrepreneurs in China and other economies with similar cultural and institutional backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tourism Tribune / Lvyou Xuekan is the property of Tourism Institute of Beijing Union University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the effects of social networks and hukou status on worker's occupational attainment in China. To identify the potential ranking of different occupations, we consider the use of the stereotype ordered regression model to estimate individual occupational choice. Our results show that social networks play different roles in shaping occupational outcomes for urban and rural workers. In particular, friendship ties significantly improve urban workers' opportunities in obtaining higher‐ranked occupations; in contrast, kinship ties appear to be more influential for rural migrants, but the effects are limited to the attainment of lower‐ranked occupations. While social contacts from government organizations or state‐owned sectors facilitate urban workers' attainment of higher‐ranked occupations, similar patterns are not observed among rural workers. We further find that the beneficial effects of social networks or urban hukou identity are stronger for workers who are from less‐developed regions, who work in state‐owned enterprises, or who have a college degree. Decomposition of the wage gap between urban and rural workers suggests that differences in social networks and occupation types, together with hukou discrimination, account for the majority of the current wage inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether union membership reduces gender earnings differentials in the Chinese labour market using an employer–employee matched data set. We have three main findings. First, union membership helps reduce the gender differentials in hourly wage and monthly allowance, but not in monthly basic wage and yearly bonus. Second, ensuring that female workers receive overtime pay is one way by which union membership helps reduce the gender earnings differentials. Third, controlling for firm fixed effects reduces the effect of union membership on the gender gap in hourly wage and monthly allowance, which means that the unobserved firm characteristics might impact the effect of union membership on gender earnings differentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the enactment of the Labour Law in 1995, China's urban labour market witnessed a divergence in both gender wage gap and discrimination against female workers before 2007, and thereafter a convergence in both. Contributions of endowment differentials between male and female workers to wage gap were diminishing because of the consistent improvement in the female workers' endowments. Discrimination against women, on the other hand, kept increasing and exceeded that of endowment differentials and eventually became the dominating contributor by 2002. Driven by the optimisation of female workers' endowments, the execution of new labour market legislation, the transformation of previously limitless labour supply into shortage, as well as the reform of income distribution policies, a long-term trend of convergence in both gender wage gap and discrimination has been forming. China has been striding forward into a society with more equity and justice ever since 2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes how inflation affects innovation and international technology transfer via cash‐in‐advance constraints on R&D. We consider a North–South quality‐ladder model that features innovative Northern R&D and adaptive Southern R&D. We find that higher Southern inflation causes a permanent decrease in technology transfer, a permanent increase in the North–South wage gap, and a temporary decrease in the Northern innovation rate. Higher Northern inflation causes a temporary decrease in the Northern innovation rate, a permanent decrease in the North–South wage gap, and ambiguous effects on technology transfer. Finally, we calibrate the model to China–U.S. data to perform a quantitative analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While China has made great achievements in highway infrastructure construction, there are still problems with the quality of development and layout balance. This paper uses the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and the entropy weight method to measure the integrated benefits of highway infrastructure (IBHIs) in 29 provinces in China from 2015 to 2020. The measurement is carried out by constructing an assessment system for the IBHIs, and the regional differences and dynamic evolutionary trends of China's IBHIs are revealed using methods such as kernel density estimation and Dagum Gini ratio decomposition. The study finds that (1) there is more potential to improve the development level of China's IBHIs. The problem of economic benefits is more prominent, while social and environmental benefits are steady to favorable in terms of their state. (2) The IBHIs in China continue to improve, with the absolute differences within regions widening and producing polarization or multicollinearity. (3) The relative differences in China's IBHIs are narrowing, and the major factor in the uneven development across regions is the intergroup differences. This study explores the current development status, dynamic change characteristics and different causes of IBHIs in China, providing a theoretical basis and empirical support for further optimizing the layout of highway networks and promoting high-quality development in the highway transport sector. • This study establishes an index assessment system for IBHI in China. • Regional characteristics are discussed based on IBHI indexes and subsystem indexes. • The dynamic trends of the IBHI are analyzed based on Kernel density estimation. • An analysis of development variations and causes is conducted using the Dagum Gini ratio. • Policy recommendations are made for the high-quality development of China's highways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a representative household survey for 1995, 2002, 2007, and 2013, we show that education plays a pivotal role in shaping wage inequality in urban China. We find that education was a major contributor to increased wage inequality between 1995 and 2013. The returns to education remained high after 2007 despite a large inflow of college-educated workers. Although regional wage inequality declined from 2007–13, regional wage inequality among educated workers did not. Residual wage inequality increased, and the within inequality of educated workers increased faster than that of the less educated. We argue that China's education expansion seems insufficient to narrow the educational wage gap, and a lack of labor mobility for educated workers prevents the decline in returns to education in specific regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between globalization and inter‐industry wage differentials in China by using a two‐stage estimation approach. Taking advantage of a rich household survey dataset, this paper estimates the wage premium for each industry in the first stage conditional on individual worker and firm characteristics. Alternative measures of globalization are considered in the second stage: trade openness and capital openness. A disaggregation of trade into trade in final and intermediate goods shows that increases in import (export) shares of final goods reduce (increase) the wage premia significantly, whereas imports or exports of intermediate goods do not explain differences in industry wage premia. This finding is supported by stronger effects for final goods trade in coastal than noncoastal regions. Our results also show a positive relationship between capital openness and industrial wage premia, though this finding is less robust when potential endogeneity issues are allowed for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper builds three‐sector general equilibrium models to investigate how a shrink of rural–urban human capital disparity generates an impact on skilled–unskilled wage inequality in China. In the basic model where the urban skilled sector and the urban unskilled sector have no upstream and downstream linkage, we find that the wage inequality will be narrowed down if the urban skilled sector is more capital intensive than the urban unskilled sector. To capture the characteristic of China's state capitalism, we build an extended model where the urban skilled sector acts as an upstream industry for the urban unskilled sector, and find that the wage inequality will be reduced if the substitution elasticity of unskilled labor and intermediate product in the urban unskilled sector is large enough. When we consider the factual characteristics of the Chinese economy, our models predict that a shrink of rural–urban human capital disparity will be helpful to reduce the skilled–unskilled wage inequality in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines Chinese expatriates working in Chinese multinational companies subsidiaries in the United Arab Emirates. We identify three salient social referents used by Chinese expatriates to assess distributive justice, i.e. employees working in mainland China, locals from the host country, and employees working in developed country multinational companies in the host country. For each referent, we explore the determinants of perceived distributive justice. The results show that equity and non‐monetary rewards are stable and influential factors for perceived distributive justice. Compensation disparity vis‐à‐vis employees working in mainland China and in international multinational companies has a significant effect on perceived distributive justice. However, compensation disparity is not used when it comes to assessing perceived distributive justice compared to locals in the host country. Finally, our findings suggest that only equity and non‐monetary rewards have significant effects on expatriation satisfaction, not perceived distributive justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The findings on education expansion and income inequality have important implications for policymakers to implement effective policies to reduce income inequality. This study attempts to explain how education expansion affects income inequality by education distribution and the rate of return to education. We decompose the effect of education expansion on wage gaps into price effect and structure effect. We compare the income inequality from 2002 to 2013 using the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) 2002 and CHIP2013 survey data and employ FFL decomposition method. Our findings suggest that income inequality increased in 2013 and that income inequality among the high-income groups increased even more significantly. The structure effect of education expansion on income inequality is negative, when average education increases one year, the income gap between 80th and 20th will decrease 1.2%, in other words, education expansion decreases income inequality by allowing a wide range of individuals to attend college. However, this effect is offset by the price effect, which is positive and much more significant in magnitude. One extra year of average education will increase income gap by 29% which means that the demand for high-skilled labour is increasing faster than the supply and thus lead to the increasing premium for higher education return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically analyzes the factors affecting personal income in urban China using survey data of the "Preference and Life Satisfaction Survey" conducted by the Global COE project of Osaka University from 2009 to 2013. We consider education level as an endogenous variable, and both ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and instrumental variable (IV) regression are performed. We find a number of factors, such as sex, age, education, and marriage that significantly affect personal income. In addition, differences between different occupations are also investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, about 150 million migrant workers reside in the major Chinese cities, where they are treated like second-class citizens by the local city governments and denied access to government jobs and welfare entitlements, with large differences existing in their treatment across the cities. In this paper, we use a new and unique dataset of urban natives and rural to urban migrants from 15 different cities in China to document this differential treatment. We apply a relatively new non-parametric technique, Nopo decomposition, which takes into account differences in the distribution of observable characteristics to decompose the wage gap that exists between the two groups and estimate the extent of discrimination faced by the migrants. Rural-to-urban migrants are found to be discriminated in the urban labour market, but to a lesser extent than has been argued in the literature. We also find that a large gap exists between the national legislation on the treatment of migrants on one hand and the implementation and enforcement by city governments on the other, and that this differential treatment helps explain part of the level of discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing debates on the impact of minimum wage have largely focused on the policy's employment effect for its theoretical implications, but the real question at stake here is its income effect, that is, whether or not it can increase the income of the underclass. Previous efforts have mostly relied on various forms of market imperfection to verify the theoretical integrity of this policy, whereas in this article we have raised another Marxian perspective, emphasizing the positive check of minimum wage on overtime work. Classical economists have long recognized the vulnerability of the working class when faced against capitalists, but only Marx has paid special attention to the complicated interaction between hourly/unit wage rates and the length of the working day, proposing that low wage rates would not only hurt workers by forcing them to work overtime, but that it would also hurt the capitalists as a class once large-scale labor degradation kicks in, endangering the very existence of a well-functioning working class for them to employ. Both the inherent conflict of interests between individual capitalists and capitalists as a class and workers' systematic disadvantage against capital serve to call for the intervention of a "visible hand" which is the establishment of a minimum wage. A theoretical model has been proposed to formalize this wage-hour mechanism for the underclass, emphasizing the special constraints they face when making labor supply decisions. We have discussed three different types of income effect, explaining how workers' income might increase with minimum wage and how firms might also benefit from such a process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The rising earnings inequality in China has sparked a heated debate on the socioeconomic outcomes of market transformation. While a large body of literature has focussed on the temporal trend of wage inequality during the reform period, much less attention has been devoted to the structural causes of regional variations in sectoral wage differentials. Using a micro-data sample from the 2005 one percent population sample survey and multilevel methods, this article examines the geographic variability of wage differentials between economic sectors in urban China, with a particular focus on the combination effects of market expansion and state intervention. The results indicate that sectoral wage differentials vary substantially across regions, and that market expansion interacts with state intervention to reconfigure earnings outcomes. Specifically, prefectures located in the interior region tend to exhibit a large wage premium for the state sectors, while prefectures located in the coastal region tend to display a wage advantage of the foreign-invested sector. The wage gap between the state and non-state sectors is smaller in areas with diversified ownership; openness to foreign investment increases the relative wages of foreign-invested-sector employees; stringent government regulation of industries increases the wage gap between the state monopoly sector and the non-monopoly sector; and strong redistributive power increases the wage premium for the public service sector over other sectors. Our findings suggest the necessity to take into account contextually constituted and locally specific wage-setting mechanisms when studying China's wage inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a wider scope of cities data from 2008 survey of Rural-Urban Migration in China, this study employs a comprehensive aspect of explanatory variables to empirically estimate wage determination and decomposes the wage differentials between urban and migrant workers in the Chinese labour market. We find that differences in endowments, such as personal traits, geography, cohort, firm characteristics and industry type explain 85-89% of the wage differentials; however, it drops significantly to 42-60% if group membership, a likely proxy for the Hukou system, is considered. Among those explanatory factors, human capital proxies of personal traits are the crucial factors for wage differentials; moreover, compared to the urban workers the education resource-poor migrants have higher rates of return on human capital variables of work experience, height and health. The significant age cohort effect reflects better job opportunity and labour quality of new generations of migrants. Policy implications for institutional change to close the wage gap are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the gender wage gap and its composition in China's urban labor market. The traditional Blinder-Oaxaca (1973) decomposition method with different weighing systems is employed. To correct for potential selection bias caused by women's labor force participation, we employ the Heckman's two-step procedure to estimate the female wage function. A large proportion of the gender wage gap is unexplained by differences of productive characteristics of individuals. Even though women have higher level of education attainments on average, they receive lower wages than men. Both facts suggest a potential discrimination against women in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]