Fertility Behabior,Occupational Segreagation And Gender Wage Gap

The gender wage gap has always been a problem that plagued China's social development,and with the gradual liberalization of fertility policies,fertility behavior has also made this problem more and more serious.Out of concerns about lower wages,women may refuse to give birth in order to avoid the gender wage gap,which also explains why China's population growth rate has not risen sharply in the context of the gradual liberalization of fertility policies.The research in this paper will show that occupational segregation is a bridge between fertility behavior and gender wage gap,and provides a new perspective for studying how fertility behavior can widen the gender wage gap.By tentatively placing the three keywords in a general equilibrium framework,this paper focuses on the following questions:First,does fertility behavior significantly affect the wage rate of men and women ? Is there a difference in the distribution of this effect? Second,will fertility behavior expose workers to occupational segregation at work? Third,can this occupational segregation explain the expansion of the gender wage gap ? How much is the interpretation? Is there a difference in the degree of interpretation between the sub-regions?On the theoretical level,this paper constructs a partial equilibrium model of the labor market that incorporates fertility variables to demonstrate that fertility behavior will have an impact on the wage rate of workers.By reducing productivity and increasing the burden of maternity insurance,the negative effects of fertility behavior are greatly reflected in the career development of women.On the specific path of influence,with the help of the "crowding hypothesis" of occupational segregation theory,this paper believes that fertility behavior will lead workers to occupational segregation.With the increase in the number of children born,the occupational vertical isolation and occupational level isolation faced by workers will Significantly rising;on this basis,the Brown decomposition method is used to analyze the degree of interpretation of the gender gap in occupational vertical segregation and occupational segregation.On the empirical level,with the CHIP2013,this paper incorporates the reproductive behavioral variables into the analytical framework,measures the reproductive behavior by the number of children already born,and then analyzes its overall impact on male and female wage rate.The empirical results reveal that: First,fertility behavior has a significant negative impact on the wage rate of both male and female,and the degree of influence on women is more significant,which also provides an argument for the expansion of gender wage gap.Moreover,at different points,the degree of influence of fertility behavior on wage rate is heterogeneous.The lower the wage,the more significant the effect of the fertility behavior.Second,fertility behavior can significantly affect the probability that male and female are engaged in various industries.Through the regression of the multivariate selection model(Mlogit),it is found that the number of children will make men and women more inclined to choose industries with lower wage levels.That is to say,the increase in the number of children has led to the accumulation of more men and women in low-wage industries.Third,in the case of occupational segregation of fertility behavior,based on the Brown decomposition method,the study found that the main source of the gender wage gap is vertically separated from the occupation,that is,the difference in occupation types between male and female.The vertical isolation of occupations explains the gender wage gap by80.09%,and is mainly caused by discrimination within the profession.Fourth,the importance of the variables affecting the gender wage gap is different in different regions.Among them,the gender wage gap caused by occupational segregation is the largest in the east and the smallest in the west.This finding helps us to reduce the gender wage gap by adopting more targeted policy measures based on the level of economic development in each region.The conclusions of theoretical analysis and empirical research agree that in China,fertility behavior has a significant negative impact on the wage rate of both male and female.At the same time,fertility behavior has further widened the gender wage gap through occupational segregation(such as occupational disruption,the “ceiling” of career development).Therefore,in order to further reduce the level of gender wage gap,it is necessary to focus on the protection of women's rights and interests in the labor market and promote the equality of women.For the eastern region,through the improvement of thematernity subsidy policy and the childcare policy,it will provide more convenience for the female workers,so that the negative effects brought about by the female fertility behavior will be gradually reduced,thereby narrowing the gender wage gap.At the same time,for the western region,the policy path of increasing investment in education and improving the education level of workers,thereby increasing the rate of return to education to narrow the gender wage gap may still be effective.