Research On Female Labor Supply In Urban Areas Of China

Female labor supply is an important measure of female social status.Female labor participation is not only conducive to self-development and economic independence,but also to gender equality and social progress.The research on female labor supply seems to be a commonplace,but actually it is a topic that keeps pace with the times.Economic transformation,information technology development and industrial structure adjustment and other social and economic changes have put forward a series of new requirements for the labor market.Especially for the women who play a dual role in market and family,there are both opportunities and challenges.This is vital to give full play to the role of female labor force not only for solving the predicament of labor supply and demand imbalance,but also for promoting gender equality.Therefore,it is necessary to systematically study female labor supply and its internal mechanism based on gender difference.According to the basic theory of labor economics,the dissertation attempts to construct a logical analysis framework from phenomenon to essence,from macro to micro,from motive to result and makes a systematic logical analysis and empirical study on the female labor supply in urban China and the gender differences in labor market by using the domestic and foreign macro-statistic data and micro-survey data.Through the summary of relevant theories and literatures,the dissertation finds that the theoretical development from individual labor supply model to family labor supply model is conducive to the study of the female labor supply;the introduction of feminist theory has strengthened the importance of gender equality in the labor market;foreign scholars mainly focus on empirical test of family labor supply model and the factors that affect women's labor supply;the research of domestic scholars is more related to China's reality.Based on the historical review of the development of China women's employment by stages and the statistical description and comparative analysis of the current situation of female labor supply,the dissertation finds that China's female labor supply has distinct historical characteristics and unique characteristics;China's female labor force participation rate is higher than other countries,but this international advantage is declining;gender differences of labor supply are obvious.Employed macro time series data,through the Cox-Stuart trend existence test,grey correlation analysis and autoregressive lag model cointegration analysis,the dissertation verifies the trend of China's urban female labor participation rate and discusses the reasons behind of the changing.It is found that there is a significant downward trend in female labor force participation rate;family factors(dependency pressure,housework burden and family size),overall education level,labor market characteristics and marriage market conditions have explanatory power to the change of female labor participation rate.Using micro survey data,the dissertation empirically analyses the mechanism of the female labor supply behavior and the rationality of gender differences in employment by constructing the labor supply model of binary logit,multiple logit and nonlinear decomposition model.The study finds that the female labor supply behavior is affected by personal characteristics and family characteristics;gender differences in employment is obvious and the gender inequality still exists,which provides an explanation for women's easier exit from the labor market.In addition,the dissertation employs the Heckman selection model,BFG estimation model and linear decomposition model to conduct micro analysis on the result of labor supply decision(labor income)of urban women in China,which finds that there is a gender income gap in the labor market and it's largely due to discrimination;the labor market segmentation will create the income gap;the income gap of the high income group is smaller than that of the low income group;women in informal employment are more likely to be discriminated against.Finally,some typical conclusions are summarized and some suggestions from the perspectives of employment opportunity,employment protection,family factors and personal quality are put forward to promote the healthy development of female labor supply according to the research conclusions.