Motherhood Penalty, Occupational Gender Segregation And Gender Wage Gap

Western scholars generally believe that gender wage gap are reflected in the impact of childbearing women, this is known as the "motherhood penalty". In this context, this article uses the China Health and Nutrition survey longitudinal data (CHNS1991-2011), starting from the framework of Labor Economics and the Family Economics, use of the motherhood penalty, occupational gender segregation and division of family policy, established multilevel models to analyze the relationship between the motherhood penalty and the gender wage gap in China, and through the Oaxaca-Binder decomposition method, explored the mechanisms how motherhood penalty effected gender wage differences.Research framework is following:the first chapter was introduction, proposed research background and research meaning; the second chapter was literature review on motherhood penalty, gender wage gap differences and occupational gender segregation of related theory and empirical research both at home and abroad; the third chapter was the research method, main variable and data source; the fourth chapter showed China’s gender income differences trend after market reform; the fifth chapter explained the relationship between birth and gender income differences of different human capital, labor sector, occupation, areas and provinces of different economic development level an; the sixth chapter further analyzed the mechanism of birth on gender income differences through average income differences decomposition, explained the effect of labor market segregation, position segregation and the gender discrimination on gender income differences of those who has given birth.The main conclusions are as follows:1. The results indicate that gender wage gap showed declining trend from 1991 to 2011. with the deepening of market-oriented process in our country, but gender inequality continues to exist.2. In the labor market in China, motherhood penalty do exist. Childbirth has less impact of wage growth on women working in the state sector, or non-self-employed and female professional and technical personnel, while greater negative impact on female service personnel, blue collar workers and senior managers. Further, female workers in regions with a higher market degree are associated with greater motherhood penalties.3. Occupational segregation for female workers do exist. Sterile female workers are concentrated in the service staff, professional and technical workers, general workers, office staff and other professional occupations in low income, occupational prestige; while the percentage of senior managers, professional and technical workers and other employment with higher occupational prestige and income is relatively low.In the "allowing two children for all couples" policy background, we are calling for consummating relevant laws and regulations to promote gender equality in the labor market, and providing more career development programs and parental support to women workers.