Labor Market Discrimination: Western Theories & Chinese Problems

Discrimination in labor markets can be a worldwide phenomenon, whether developed or developing countries, it has existed in to some extent. Discrimination not only broke the principle of social equity, and made the group, which were discriminated against, suffering the dual losses in both mental and monetary, but also lowered the whole social economic efficiency, as a result caused the total output decreased.The western economic circles have been taking discrimination as one of the popular problems. A lot of scholars made a thorough research, pushing to the development of the discrimination economics. Gary S. Becker developed the quantitative analysis method of a kind of non-money motive, making it possible for economists to do research on the problem of discrimination, and firstly constructed the theoretical model to explain the economic effects of discrimination. The analytical method of the contemporary economists originates from the Becker's model.Undoubtedly, discrimination existed in Chinese labor markets, even more seriously, but in contrast to the western economic circles, ours pay too less attention to it. The present research is still at the start stage, the researches of the theories and anti-discrimination measures get very behind, therefore the research on discrimination in labor markets will be of great benefit to establishment the whole country unifying, opening, competing, ordering labor market, and play an important role in building up the modern market system. Especially under the background of the economic globalization, we must concern about the problems of social item and international labor standard in international society in order to adapt to the new situation of Chinese joining the WTO.This paper focuses on the problems of discrimination in Chinese labor markets. Atfirst the paper introduces the origins of discrimination thoughts and main representative's theories in Western labor markets; the second points out how to make use of the western discrimination theories by comparison research; the third analyses the discrimination problems in Chinese labor markets, the analytical method combines positive analysis with normative analysis; in the end puts forward the suggestion of eliminating discrimination in Chinese labor markets on the basis of appraising the anti-discrimination measures of international society, western and our country.The paper takes rural worker and female worker as the main objective of research, because these two groups have a great deal of population and they are two of the biggest discrimination in Chinese labor markets which obtaining employment is very difficult at current economic situation. Discrimination enlarged the gap of earning between them and the others, so easily caused many potential social problems. At the same time discrimination distorted the allocation of human resources and caused the high waste of social resources. The paper gives emphasis on empirical analysis, such as rural worker and urban worker's occupational distribution, income difference, and extent of discrimination in their wage differentials; male labor and female labor's occupational distribution, income difference, and extent of discrimination in their wage differentials; the effect of resources allocation on national income etc. As far as the choice of analytical tools, the paper makes use of statistics description, comparison analysis, estimation of multiple linear regression model, differential method, dissimilarity index, etc.The paper tries to give the innovation at following aspects:1. Systematically introduces western theories of discrimination in labor markets, and develops the theory of statistical discrimination.2. Studies the Chinese problems of discrimination in labor markets thoroughly and completely, at present no paper gives a very comprehensive research on it. .