The Influence Of Internet Use On Gender Wage Gap

According to the 2020 Global Gender Gap Report,in 2019,the level of wage equality between Chinese women and men in similar jobs ranked 75th in the world,indicating that there is a serious gender wage gap in China,and there is a severe phenomenon of "unequal pay for equal work".The labor market is gradually breaking the wage guarantee system of "gender income equality".At the same time,under the background of digital economy,the Internet,as the underlying technology of various digital technologies,is profoundly changing people's lifestyles and modes of production,and gradually permeating into the process of economic and social development.As a kind of technological progress,the use of Internet will inevitably have an impact on productivity and raise the overall wage level,but there is likely to be gender difference.Therefore,it is necessary to study how the Internet,a specific technology,affects the gender wage level,and then how it affects the gender wage gap.Based on the above background,this paper selects the data of China General Social Survey,CGSS)in 2010,2013 and 2017 to make an in-depth study on the relationship between Internet use and gender wage gap:firstly,using the robust least squares regression method,it is found that Internet use significantly improves the overall wage level,However,the overall promotion effect of Internet use on women's wages is stronger than that of men.Further analysis shows that the reason for this difference lies in that the promotion effect of Internet use on women's wages at lower and middle wage levels is higher than that of men,but it should be noted that the promotion effect of Internet use on women's wages at higher wage levels is lower than that of men.Secondly,using RIF unconditional quantile Oaxaca decomposition method to decompose the gender wage gap,the study found that gender discrimination is still the main cause of gender wage gap,which contributed 102.3872%,102.6435%and 138.7299%to the gender wage gap in 2010,2013 and 2017 respectively.However,on the whole,the use of Internet can not only narrow the gender wage gap from the perspective of human capital characteristics,but also from the perspective of gender discrimination effect.Through further decomposition of different quantiles,it is found that Internet use has a strong narrowing effect on the gender wage gap at low and middle wage levels.However,it should be noted that the use of the Internet will enlarge the gender wage gap at a higher wage level from the perspective of gender discrimination effect.On this basis,using Sobel-Goodman intermediary test,it is found that on the one hand,Internet use will directly have a significant positive promotion effect on gender wage level,on the other hand,it will have a significant positive intermediary effect on gender wage level by acting on variable individual characteristics,and the intermediary effect on women is stronger than that on men.In addition,the robustness test shows that the benchmark regression results of this paper are relatively robust.Finally,according to the research conclusion,it is proposed to strengthen the gender concept of equality between men and women,prevent gender discrimination from the root causes,promote industrial digital transformation and intelligent upgrading,improve women's employment opportunities and quality,improve education and training on Internet use,improve women's information quality,implement laws and policies on women's protection,and effectively protect women's legitimate rights and interests.