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Research On Female Labor Supply During Transition Period In Urban China

Posted on:2007-01-18Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:L TanFull Text:PDF
GTID:1119360182471539Subject:Political economy
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The labor market has been experiencing great changes during transition period in urban China. The change is even greater for women than for men. Chinese urban women are becoming a source of disadvantaged minority and urban poverty. It's imperative to solve the problem of unemployment and poverty for women, and to keep the gender gap from widening. The analyses of female labor supply can lay micro foundation for policy-making. While there lacks all-around and profound analysis domestically, we attempt to reveal the mode and determinative factors for female labor supply in urban China from economic perspective by systematical investigation.Our dissertation is based on the research findings of contemporaneous labor economics and family economics. The family labor supply models, represented by common preference models and collective bargaining models, lay the theoretical foundation for our investigation, and the micro econometric techniques furnish us with essential empirical tools.Keeping these theories in mind, we retrospect on the change of female labor supply status and its history background, and then analyze the effect on female labor force participation caused by the enlargement of income gender gap, the marketlization of housework, the higher lever of education, as well as the growth of divorce rate.In the following part, we apply the econometric techniques in analyzing individual female labor supply empirically. Owing to the abundant data base, we can carry out both cross-sectional analysis and pooled cross-sectional analysis.Firstly, we use the micro data in cross-section to test whether the common preference model is still applicable in urban China. As the pooling hypothesis cannot be rejected in those families with children younger than 18 years old, we come to the conclusion that common preference model is still suitable for us to use in those families in urban China. By two stage least squares estimation, we predict the potential market wage, and calculate both the wage elasticity and income elasticity.We find that the female labor force participation probability is positively correlated with her potential market wage; and the absolute value of the gross wage elasticity, the compensated wage elasticity, and the income elasticity are all small.By further analysis, we find that there exist significant gender disparities in labor supply behavior. These gender disparities lie not only in character disparities but also in different reaction to changes in labor market. By multinomial logit model, we analyze the choice among the following three states: employment, unemployment and out of labor force. We find that the gender variable can influence labor supply significantly both directly and indirectly. Education, number of kids, and marriage can have different effect on males and females. Discouraged worker effect is significant both for males and for females, but for females this kind of effect is much more prominent.There exists a pair of contradictions when comparing cross-sectional data set with time series data set. Change of variables cannot explain the change of female labor force participation rate in time series. By estimation of labor force participation function based on pooled cross sectional data, we find that the coefficient effect is significant. Both the relationship between married women's labor supply and her human capital accumulation, and the relationship between her labor supply and number of kid are becoming tighter. The reason for the change lies in decentralization of the right of labor supply decision. Workers will be more sensitive to changes of economic variables in transitional period than in pre-reform era. Estimation results also indicate a growing reluctance of married women to be dependent on their husband's incomes. By further analysis based on Blinder—Oaxaca decomposition, we find that the change of labor supply function can explain most of the change in female labor force participation rate. Another important finding is that, female labor supply behavior has changed step by step, and the later period in economic transition has experienced greater changes.Our conclusion is that the decline of female labor force participation rate is not the result of increase of income gender gap, but the result of severe labor market status. So it's time for us to adopt some efficient measures, including increasing labordemand, improving female labor supply, and constituting some effective bearing-insurance systems, so as to improve female labor market status and their economic welfare.
Keywords/Search Tags:common preference models, collective bargaining model, unemployment rate, labor force participation rate, discouraged worker effect, gender disparity, Blinder—Oaxaca decomposition
PDF Full Text Request
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