The Evolution Of Gender Wage Gap In China Labor Markets

Gender income inequality has become an important aspect of China?s income inequality. By applying the RIF -OLS regression decomposition methodology, this paper analyzes the trend of gender wage gap from 1992 to 2010, and the influence factors of gender wage gap, especially from the perspective of occupational sex segregation. The data set comes from China Health and Nutrition Survey(CHNS).This paper finds that: firstly, gender wage gap is expanding in the past ten years, and the gap is larger with income increases. Secondly, occupational sex segregation has existed in China labor markets over time and becomes more and more serious. At the same time, women are generally allocated in lower income occupations. Thirdly, the effect of occupational sex segregation on gender wage gap is significant, and this effect is much bigger in low-income group and high-income group than in middle-income group. After taking into account the factors of sample selection and inherent issues, the above conclusions still stand. Fourthly, the comparative analysis of the city area and the rural area finds that, there is a rising tendency of gender wage gap in the city area, and a tendency of gender wage gap in the rural area to exceed that in the city area in low-income group and high-income group in recent years. Occupational sex segregation plays an important role in the expansion of gender wage gap in both areas.Government can improve the condition of occupational sex segregation and narrow gender wage gap, thereby reducing income inequality in the labor markets by regulating the sex ratio of various occupations, strengthening the protection of women by means of law and public propaganda, and raising the educational level of women.