Discrimination In China's Urban Labor Market

Since reform and opening up, China has been gradually changing from a planned economy toward a market economy, the market mechanism increasingly played an important role in the allocation of labor resources, the wage level of the urban labor also continually grew, the surplus rural labor transfered to the non-agricultural industries and urban areas, the labor mobility is increasingly frequent. But at the same time, discrimination in the urban labor market also has become increasingly significant. The wage level of female labor is lower than men's, the gender wage differentials are no longer at a low level and significantly expanding; the labor force transferred from the rural areas were discriminated in occupational access, wages and labor security and other areas with local workers, because of the existence of the traditional systems based on the household registration system in the social and political spheres.Based on the results and ideas of the researches of domestic and foreign scholars, this paper made some quantitative analysis and forecasting using all kinds of macro and micro data, and investigated the gender discrimination and the discrimination to the transferred rural labor in the China's urban labor market from the view of occupational (industrial) segregation, wage discrimination, social security and welfare discrimination and the total labor remuneration discrimination, revealed the degree of impact of discrimination in the China's current urban labor market, and provided useful theoretical and empirical evidence for the reasonable design and implementation of a fair employment system, the wages system and the social security system, creating a fairly competitive labor market environment, as well as eliminating discrimination.First of all, we investigate from the view of occupational and industrial segregation respectively. According to the macro data from the calendar year, "China Labor Statistics Yearbook", 2005 China 1% of the population sample survey, as well as 2006 China's labor survey, we start with the measure of occupational or industrial segregation between male and female labor, migrant workers and urban workers, the results of Duncan index, the square root index and the IP index show that: since reform and opening up in 1978, although China's gender ratio of employment in their respective dominant different industries has some changes, the overall changes is modest. In recent years the gap become wider. The changes employment change between men and women in different sectors have greater inertia and are influenced by various social factors. The degree of segregation between migrant workers and urban workers was significantly higher than that between male and female labor force. 47.06% of the urban labour force or rural labor force need to change their industries to make both groups have the same ratio of employment in different industries. The rural labor force transfered to the urban areas will encounter on higher labour market barriers and are discriminated with the local workers. Whether it is industrial segregation or occupational segregation, the segregation of the different region is differenct, segregation indexes are related with the economic development level of this regions. The economically developed regions have relatively low level of segregation, market competition helps to reduce on the bias or employment discrimination, reduce occupational of industrial barriers, in order to give different labor groups the same employment opportunities.On the basis of the micro data, we further applies multinomial logit model to regress the the probability of migrant workers and urban workers, male and female labor force entering some industry or occupation respectively, inspects the factors influncing the employment opportunities, and predict the occupational and industrial distribution of migrant workers and urban workers, male and female labor force respectively, when they face the other's labor market situation. We found that in the current urban labor market there is a clear industrial and occupational segregation, migrant workers and femal labor muster in the low wage industries or occupations, and few of them work in the high wage industries and occupations. If there is no difference in treatment, migrant workers and female labor will transfer to the industry and occupation with higher income. The level of education is the most important factor that influnces which industry or occupation the worker will work in. Enhancing the education of migrant workers and women workers will help them overcome the employment obstacles they encountered.Secondly, we study discrimination from the perspective of wage discrimination. Based on the micro data, we analyse the wage differentials between migrant workers and urban workers, male and female labor force in China's urban labor market. The decomposition of Oaxaca- Blinder and Cotton show that although the wage differentials between local workers and migrant workers mainly come from the characteristics difference of workers, obviously discrimination exists in China's urban labour market, migrant workers in the labor market are discriminated with local workers. The gender wage differentials all contribute to discrimination, discrimination deeply impacts the status ot female workers in the labor market. After that, we further investigate the factors that determine the level of worker's remuneration in inter-industry and inter-occupation, introduce industrial or occupational segregation into wage equation, and study how the various parts impact the remuneration difference between migrant workers and urban workers, male and female labor. We found that the wages of migrant workers and female workers are lower than urban workers and male workers respectively within industries or occupations, in the industries and occupations with higher wage the return to the education of migrant workers and female workers is also significantly lower than urban workers and male workers respectively, there is discrimination in the determination of wage. And compared to industrial or occupational segregation, the wage differentials between migrant workers and urban workers mainly come from internal industries or occupations, even in the same industry or occupation, the level of compensation for two categories of workers is not same, that contribute to personal characteristics difference of the workers, but the effect of discrimination can not be ignored. The differentials between female and male workers also come from internal industries or occupations, but that kind of differentials is almost entirely explained by the discriminatory factors, personal endowment just has little impact on the difference.Third, we investigate the benefits discrimination between migrant workers and urban workers, male and female labor force, study the factors that impact on the ratio of worker obtained benefits. We find that regardless of the perspective from industry or occupation, the pension insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance rates of migrant workers are far below the rate of the urban workers. the rate of return to migrant workers are greatly lower than urban workers in education, type of business and professional types and so on, there is discrimination to migrant workers in the social welfare insurance.The welfare rates of female labor are slightly lower than men's, the effect of type of business to the welfare is much greater than the impact of education and occupational type, and there is discrimination to female workers in the social welfare insurance.Finally, we take industrial or occupational segregation, wages and welfare factors together to decomposit the remuneration differences between migrant workers and urban workers, male and female labor force. The results show that: combining with the welfare factors, the differences between migrant workers and urban workers further expand, the total labor remuneration differentials are mainly from inter-industries or inter-occupations, about 14% to 17% remuneration differences contribute to the difference caused by the social welfare insurance factors and it is primarily from inter-industry or inter-occupation. The differences between male and female workers also increase, the welfare impact on the total remuneration is at about 3% to 5%, the differentials within industries or occupations still are the most important parts.