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City Size and Wage Disparity in Segmented Labour Market in China

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  • Liqun Pan
  • Pundarik Mukhopadhaya
  • Jing Li

Abstract

type="main"> The relation between city size and wage inequality is well established for Western countries. This paper finds that city size–wage premium exists across Chinese cities to a lower extent than the Western world. Further, using a simplified model on the Chinese Household Income Project survey data, we find that the city size–wage premium varies with difference in skills among urban citizens. The variation amounts to 50% more for the high-skill workers compared with their low-skill counterparts. Moreover, owing to the presence of segmented labour market, the patterns of city size–wage premium and city size–wage inequality premium are notably different for the migrants, who receive a much lesser wage than the citizens and do not experience wage variation owing to their skill heterogeneity.

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  • Liqun Pan & Pundarik Mukhopadhaya & Jing Li, 2016. "City Size and Wage Disparity in Segmented Labour Market in China," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 128-148, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausecp:v:55:y:2016:i:2:p:128-148
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    Cited by:

    1. Yiming Zhou, 2017. "Urban wage inequality and economic agglomeration," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 59(2), pages 475-494, September.
    2. Pan, Liqun & Mukhopadhaya, Pundarik & Li, Jing, 2019. "The changing texture of the city-size wage differential in Chinese cities – Effects of skill and identity," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 191-210.
    3. Anping Chen & Tianshi Dai & Mark D. Partridge, 2021. "Agglomeration and firm wage inequality: Evidence from China," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 352-386, March.

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