Women Equal Employment Opportunities: The Theory Of Employer Discrimination, Statistical Discrimination Theory And Social Network Theory Test

Based on three theoretical perspectives on female opportunity of employment, i.e., the employer's discrimination theory, statistical discrimination theory and social network theory, this paper develops six hypotheses to explain the difference of opportunity of female employment in contemporary China. CGSS2003 is used to test these hypotheses. Logistic regression analysis results show: First, the private company give more employment opportunities to female labors than the State-owned company; Second, the female labors are more likely to be in part-time jobs than male Labors are. Third, the paths which job-searchers used to find job (including social network and formal paths) influence the outcomes, Female labors are more likely to find a good job by using the formal paths. And it is also found that education is an important factor to help female to gain employment opportunities. These results indicate that each of the these theories can explain different aspects of the social phenomenon in China in some way. Employer's Discrimination Theory explains why private company give more opportunities to female labors than state-owned company; Statistical Discrimination Theory can explain why female labors can't find qualified jobs just like male labors do; Social Network Theory can explain why the female labors using the formal path can find more qualified jobs than the female labors using social networks.