Gender Difference In Initial Employment Of College And University Graduates

College and university students play a vital role in fulfilling the "Chinese Dream" of national rejuvenation and achieving the "Two Centennial Goals" as intellectuals and a major force of social development.Secretary-General Xi Jinping has on many occasions stated that "employment is so fundamental to people's livelihood that we have to spare no efforts to offer job opportunities for the youth,especially for college and university graduates."Against the background where employment of college and university graduate draws wide social attention,research at home and abroad dedicated to this field mainly focuses on labor market segmentation,the graduates' employability and employment quality influencing factors,and employment psychology.However,the gender differences of college graduates have not attracted enough attention.Compared with their male counterparts,female graduates are in a weaker position in the job market,includes employment opportunity,quality and salary.So,is this difference between male and female initial employment due to differences in human capital or due to gender discrimination in the labor market?If this diffeerence is mainly caused by the latter,it will cause the girls to enter the labor market starting point of the unfair and huge waste of human resources.Therefore,careful analysis of initial employment differences of male and female and the impact of factors is very important.Based on a case study of graduates from colleges and universities in Nanjing,this paper applies an integrated research framework to observe differences in initial employment between male and female graduates,including undergraduates and postgraduates of both regular and key institutions,and explores reasons behind such differences in terms of job hunting and the outcome of initial employment.The specific content includes:As regards the time spent on job hunting,female graduates spend more time than their male counterparts,which contradicts the theoretical expectation that lower expected starting salary leads to shorter time of job hunting.Such a contradiction indicates that,compared with the male graduates,the female ones are in an inferior position in the labor market.Even if the expected starting salary is lower,the female graduates still need to invest more time in hunting jobs that meet their expectation.Moreover,this finding applies to undergraduates only while the variable "gender" does not work significantly for the postgraduates;nor does the variable work significantly for graduates from key institutions in terms of the time spent on job hunting.However,the variable "gender" difference works significantly among graduates from regular institutions.In terms of job hunting results,when other conditions remain the same,the average number of offers received by the male graduates is higher than that of the female ones.Such a difference fails to be explained by time of job hunting,personal traits,human capital or social capital.Rather,it is probably caused by the invisible gender difference.Gender has significant influence on the outcome of the initial employment of graduates.Firstly,analysis on the factors influencing the starting salary of graduates for their initial employment shows that postgraduates have a higher starting salary than undergraduates,and graduates from key institutions of higher learning are better paid than those from regular ones.For male graduates,variables regarding their performance in colleges and universities that produce significant influence on the starting salary include whether they have been university-level cadres,the number of technical certificates they obtained and whether they have received provincial awards.For female graduates,factors like whether they have been university-level or school-level cadres,whether they have passed CET 6 or NCRE(Level ?),and whether they have obtained provincial or university-level awards greatly influence their starting salaries,as expected.The variable "industry" is estimated to work significantly,indicating that there is a huge gap in starting salary for male graduates in different industries;the impact of industries on the starting salary for initial employment is not significant,but that of the specific positions is.Furthermore,analysis on the gender difference regarding starting salary for initial employment of graduates reveals that,although the increase in human capital lifts the starting salary for the female graduates,the starting salary of the female graduates is still lower than that of the male ones when other conditions are the same.Moreover,the starting salary of the female graduates with higher human capital is even lower than that of the male ones with lower human capital.Even when the human capital and labor market characteristics are controlled,the starting salary of the male graduates for the initial employment is still higher.This may be the result of discrimination against female in their initial employment.The female graduates may settle for the lower salary in order to get a job.Additionally,this paper divides the entities for which the graduates serve into state-owned entities and private entities.Compared with private entities,state-owned ones feature more stable income,better welfare,more comfortable work environment and higher social reputation.Hence,for most graduates,state-owned entities are a "desirable" choice.As the estimation based on the samples of both gender discloses,the mapping degrees between majors and positions are positively related to employment quality,with greater marginal effect on the female graduates.Being a graduate from a key institution is more important for the male graduates while being a Party member works similarly for the female ones.For the male graduates who have served as university-level cadres,the marginal probability of being recruited by a state-owned entity goes up by 17.4%.For the female graduates who have served as class-level cadres,the marginal probability of being recruited by a state-owned entity goes up by 8.6%.Finally,with other variables controlled,gender does not exert significant influence on mapping between major and position regarding initial employment of graduates,indicating that there is no major difference between male and female graduates when they are deciding whether to choose positions that match their majors.However,majors do have huge impact on the first job that the graduates choose.Mapping degree of graduates majoring in economics,management,humanities and social sciences is higher than that of those majoring in science,engineering,agriculture and medicine,because graduates in the former group enjoy wider choices of employment and more positions,which make it more likely for them to choose positions related to their majors.In addition,compared with job hunting channels found by graduates themselves,those offered by their schools allow a higher mapping degree,suggesting that schools to a certain degree play a positive role in improving the mapping degree in the initial employment of graduates.Mapping degrees of different positions vary.The mapping degrees of technical jobs are higher than those of the subsidiary jobs,and mapping degrees of the sales and service jobs are the lowest.This is associated with the nature of occupation because the technical jobs impose more stringent demands on professional skills of the technical staff while the sales and services jobs emphasize more on social rather than technical skills.Based on the analysis above,it can be concluded that various factors influence employment at different stages,from the mapping between majors and positions through job hunting to the employment outcome,and that the long process preceding a job decision determines the employment outcome,which exhibits an apparent "up-front" feature.Existing employment guarantee system for college and university graduates in China focuses more on the processes of job hunting and the stage when the job has been decided,and provides "post" support.Yet such a guarantee system plays a limited role in the initial employment of the graduates.Therefore,to better facilitate their initial employment,this paper provides an analysis framework of all-round guarantee system for the initial employment of college and university graduates in terms of the subject,function and mechanism of employment guarantee.This framework covers functions of six major guaranteeing subjects and the processes of four major guaranteeing mechanisms.It will offer effective guarantee for college and university graduates for their initial employment and address gender differences to promote employment equality and improve the quality of employment.