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Women hold up half the sky? Gender identity and the wife's labor market performance in China

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  • Ye, Bing
  • Zhao, Yucong

Abstract

In this paper, we empirically study the impact of gender identity on the wife's labor supply in China where a high female employment rate and a large population that has a traditional gender identity coexist. We find that the wife's gender identity affects her labor force participation for all cohorts, and the wife's gender identity affects earnings only for rural cohorts. The impact of gender identity varies among generational, regional, and educational cohorts. Husbands still guide their wives, i.e., a husband's gender identity affects his wife's labor force participation and earnings.

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  • Ye, Bing & Zhao, Yucong, 2018. "Women hold up half the sky? Gender identity and the wife's labor market performance in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 116-141.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:47:y:2018:i:c:p:116-141
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2017.08.002
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    Cited by:

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    2. Mengling Zhang & Zhenlin Weng & Zhaojiu Chen & Feng Wu, 2022. "Land Endowment and Parental Educational Investment in Rural China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-14, April.
    3. Zhao, Yucong & Ye, Bing & Shi, Jinchuan, 2022. "Gender identity, preference, and relative income within households," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Huang, Yana & Wang, Tianyu, 2022. "MULAN in the name: Causes and consequences of gendered Chinese names," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. Xiaodong Sun & Kaisheng Lai & Hong Han & Chenyan Yang, 2023. "Could Children’s Gender Predict Their Parents’ Housework Behavior?," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(3), pages 21582440231, July.
    6. Kang, Yankun & Liang, Shuyuan & Bai, Caiquan & Feng, Chen, 2020. "Labor contracts and parents’ educational expectations for children: Income effect or expected effect?," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    7. Fang, Guanfu & Zhu, Ying, 2022. "Long-term impacts of school nutrition: Evidence from China’s school meal reform," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    8. Luna Bellani & Marisa Hidalgo-Hidalgo, 2023. "Educate Some to Represent Many? Education and Female Political Representation in Europe," Working Papers 23.12, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    9. Wenyuan Liu & Ting Ren, 2021. "Family ties and employment behavior: The role of financial intermediaries," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 48-75, February.
    10. Wei Si, 2022. "Higher education expansion and gender norms: evidence from China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1821-1858, October.
    11. Shi, Xinjie & Huangfu, Bingyu & Jin, Songqing & Gao, Xuwen, 2023. "Property Rights, Labor Reallocation, and Gender Inequality in Rural China," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335534, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender identity; Wife's labor force participation; Earnings; Marriage; Urban-rural;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General

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