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

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Author Info
Chi, Wei
Li, Bo

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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.

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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 3544.

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Date of creation: May 2007
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Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:3544

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Related research
Keywords: glass ceiling sticky floor gender pay gap wage distribution Influence Function

Find related papers by JEL classification:
J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

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  1. Björn Gustafsson & Shi Li, 2000. "Economic transformation and the gender earnings gap in urban China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 305-329. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Meng, Xin, 1998. "Male-female wage determination and gender wage discrimination in China's rural industrial sector," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 67-89, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Margaret Maurer-Fazio & James Hughes, 2002. "The Effects of Market Liberalization on the Relative Earnings of Chinese Women," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 460, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross Business School. [Downloadable!]
  4. Meng, Xin & Miller, Paul, 1995. "Occupational Segregation and Its Impact on Gender Wage Discrimination in China's Rural Industrial Sector," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 136-55, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Maurer-Fazio, Margaret & Hughes, James, 2002. "The Effects of Market Liberalization on the Relative Earnings of Chinese Women," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 709-731, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Vera A. Adamchik & Arjun S. Bedi, 2003. "Gender pay differentials during the transition in Poland," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 11(4), pages 697-726, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Donald, Stephen G & Green, David A & Paarsch, Harry J, 2000. "Differences in Wage Distributions between Canada and the United States: An Application of a Flexible Estimator of Distribution Functions in the Presence of Covariates," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 67(4), pages 609-33, October.
  8. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Meng, Xin, 1998. "Gender Occupational Segregation and Its Impact on the Gender Wage Differential among Rural-Urban Migrants: A Chinese Case Study," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 741-52, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. SErgio Firpo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2006. "Unconditional Quantile Regressions," Textos para discussão 533, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil). [Downloadable!]
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  11. José Mata & José A. F. Machado, 2005. "Counterfactual decomposition of changes in wage distributions using quantile regression," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 445-465. [Downloadable!]
  12. Thomas Lemieux, 2002. "Decomposing changes in wage distributions: a unified approach," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 35(4), pages 646-688, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. James Albrecht & Anders Bjorklund & Susan Vroman, 2003. "Is There a Glass Ceiling in Sweden?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 145-177, January. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  14. Melly, Blaise, 2005. "Decomposition of differences in distribution using quantile regression," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 577-590, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Hiau Joo Kee, 2006. "Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor? Exploring the Australian Gender Pay Gap," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 82(259), pages 408-427, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Dong, Xiao-Yuan & MacPhail, Fiona & Bowles, Paul & Ho, Samuel P. S., 2004. "Gender Segmentation at Work in China's Privatized Rural Industry: Some Evidence from Shandong and Jiangsu," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 979-998, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Dong, Xiao-yuan & Bowles, Paul, 2002. "Segmentation and discrimination in China's emerging industrial labor market," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(2-3), pages 170-196. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Xin Meng & Junsen Zhang & Pak-Wai Liu, 2000. "Sectoral gender wage differentials and discrimination in the transitional Chinese economy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 331-352. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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