The Changing Trend And Causes Decomposition Of Gender Income Gap For Residents In China

A significant growth of resident income in China has been generally obtained since the reform and opening up policy were taken in1978. However, it is also accompanied with the increasing of income gap. Expansion of income gap, as a result of social inequality, often leads to social unrest and instability, and has detrimental effects on coordinative development of economy and society. Overall, the gap of the resident income mainly reflects in rural-urban income gap, regional income disparity, income disparity among industries and genders. It is essential that we implement rational measures according to the study of the trends and causes of income gap, and this is how such studies bring realistic significance.In order to investigate the point characteristics and trends of the gender income gap, this study considers gender inequality as research object and is conducted in the following analyses.(1) Summarizing the relevant literatures on gender income differences in China.(2) Conducting a primary analysis on the individual income and the changing trend in terms of different gender, using the descriptive statistical and kernel density estimation methods.(3) Estimating the gender income equations at different times through conditional quantile regression model to explore the extent of personal characteristics factors contributing to revenue.(4) Analyzing the gender income differences in the mean and distribution level, based on the Oaxaca-Blinder and MM2005wage decomposition methods, to find the source of the income gap.(5) Match the sample data to study the income gap between husband and wife within a family.(6) Propose suggestions about how to narrow the gender income gap.The main conclusions are as follows:(1) Significant regional and urban-rural differences exist in widening gender income gap, which shows an inverted U relationship with the economic development. Currently, the gender income gap in urban areas tends to narrow. On the contrary, it is growing in rural areas at the same time.(2) The whole social rate of experience return has decreased significantly, while the difference between men and women is shrinking. In addition, women have a higher rate of return on education than men. For other factors, the household registration still has significant influence on resident income, while regional factors’ contributions are declining.(3) Gender discrimination is widespread, and it is showing a downward trend although still large in high income level, but the situation is opposite in high level. The proportion of the income gap caused by the differences due to gender endowment return is improved in recent years.(4) The household has a lower internal rate of education return and smaller income gap than that in society. Male of the different income level has different spouse-selection ideas.