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The Employment Gender Gap in Urban China: Why Women Benefited Less from China's Privatization Reforms

Author

Listed:
  • Christina Jenq

    (Institute for Emerging Market Studies, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

Abstract

Dr. Christina Jenq, a post-doctoral researcher with HKUST IEMS, inspects the role of 1990's era reforms to urban Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) on the widening gender imbalance in urban employment, with males accounting for a significantly larger share of urban employment than females. Based on rigorous econometric analysis, Dr. Jenq postulates that 30-50% of the gender imbalance amongst the urban employed can be assigned to gender-asymmetric industry-level privatization, with the remaining 50-70% attributable to gender differences in labor supply, both on a qualitative and qualitative level. Dr. Jenq cautions against quota-based employment policies aimed at reducing the employment gender gap (as there was scant evidence of gender discrimination found in her analysis), and instead recommends increases in both skill training programs as well as childcare and education benefits to allow more urban women the opportunity to enter the labor force.

Suggested Citation

  • Christina Jenq, 2015. "The Employment Gender Gap in Urban China: Why Women Benefited Less from China's Privatization Reforms," HKUST IEMS Thought Leadership Brief Series 2015-08, HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies, revised May 2015.
    • Handle: RePEc:hku:briefs:201508
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    File URL: https://iems.ust.hk/assets/publications/thought-leadership-briefs/2015/tlb08/1504148-ust-iems_thought-leadership-brief-issue-8_v05-web-version1.pdf
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Chinese state-owned enterprises; Chinese SOEs; Chinese privatization; privatization; SOE reform; gender imbalance; employment gender gap; ownership-specific human capital; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts

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