Gender identity,preference, and relative income within households

In this paper, we empirically study the impact of gender identity on wives' relative income within households in China and find that a husband's and a wife's traditional gender identity statistically significantly and negatively affect the wife's relative income in the household. The heterogeneous effects of gender identity for different residence types, education levels, and age groups are also studied. Supporting empirical evidence is explored for the preference mechanism that couples with traditional gender identities are more averse to having a wife who earns more than her husband. We also find that a husband earns less if the husband or the wife has a traditional gender identity.     

Macroprudential policy and household wealth inequality: Evidence from China

The influence of LTV ceiling on household wealth inequality is not constant. This paper finds that when the return on housing investment is higher than the return on liquid assets, the LTV ceiling generally has a negative impact on household wealth inequality; otherwise, it is more likely to be positive. Increasing the LTV ceiling can significantly alleviate household wealth inequality in China. Housing price and the number of houses purchased are important channels, and the house purchase preference (savings rate and house purchase intention) plays a key role in regulating wealth distribution through the LTV ceiling.     

Fenjiashu: Economic development in the Chinese countryside based on household division inventories,ca. 1750–1910

Despite the existence of a rich literature on Chinese partial household division, there is still limited evidence of its effect on land and capital accumulation and well-being. In this study, contrary to the dominant view, we find that household property size peaked around 1800s–1830s, suggesting that equal-share system did not necessarily lead to land fragmentation. We find evidence that this rise in farm sizes is related to the opposing forces of increased well-being and increased inequality.     

Inequality of opportunity and household education expenditures: Evidence from panel data in China

This paper offers one of the first pieces of empirical evidence on the impact of inequality of opportunity on household education investment by using the panel data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in three waves (2010, 2012 and 2014). Our result suggests that inequality of opportunity has a negative effect on household education expenditures. This result is robust to a series of robustness checks. Furthermore, for relatively disadvantaged households (household heads with less education, income, or rural hukou status), inequality of opportunity has a larger negative effect on their education expenditures. Policy suggestions to lower inequality of opportunity may include reducing labor market discrimination based on gender and hukou status, balancing education resources to create more equal educational opportunities, and offering children education subsidies in low-income families.     

Racial/Ethnic Differences in Income Inequality Across US Regions

In this study we investigate the differences in income inequality among different racial/ethnic groups in the United States using both personal and household income. We find that income inequality is negatively related to the percentage of males but that the impact is muted for blacks as opposed to whites or Hispanics. In addition, we find income inequality among blacks and Hispanics is affected in vastly different ways, due to unemployment, than for whites. Finally, the impacts on inequality from the exclusion of given groups is significantly influenced by education and the percentage of males contributing to household income but not in a uniform manner for whites, blacks, and Hispanics.     

A colonial legacy of African gender inequality? Evidence from Christian Kampala, 1895–2011

The colonial legacy of African underdevelopment is widely debated but hard to document. In this article, occupational statistics from Protestant marriage registers of historical Kampala are used to investigate the hypothesis that African gender inequality and female disempowerment are rooted in colonial times. We find that the arrival of Europeans in Uganda ignited a century‐long transformation of Kampala involving a gender Kuznets curve. Men rapidly acquired literacy and quickly found their way into white‐collar (high‐status) employment in the wage economy built by the Europeans. Women took somewhat longer to obtain literacy and considerably longer to enter into white‐collar and waged work. This led to increased gender inequality during the first half of the colonial period. However, gender inequality gradually declined during the latter half of the colonial era, and after Uganda's independence in 1962 its level was not significantly different from that of pre‐colonial times. The data presented here also support Boserup's view that gender inequality was rooted in indigenous social norms: daughters of African men who worked in the traditional, informal economy were less well‐educated, less frequently employed in formal work, and more often subjected to marital gender inequality than daughters of men employed in the modernized, formal economy created by the Europeans.     

Decomposing inequality and poverty in post-war Rwanda: The roles of gender,education, wealth and location

This paper provides an overview of poverty and inequality in post-war Rwanda. Rwanda is one of the poorest countries in the world, and has recently become one of the most unequal. High levels of poverty and inequality have important implications not only in terms of evaluations of social welfare, but also for management of social tensions and the propensity for violent conflict in the future. This paper uses the first two available and nationally representative rounds of household surveys –EICV1 2000 and EICV2 2005 – to decompose and identify the major ‘sources' of poverty and inequality in the country. I find stark differences in vulnerability to poverty by region, gender and widow status of the head of household. I additionally find important changes in the ‘income generating functions' of Rwandan households, and that distribution of land and financial assets are increasingly important in determining the inter-household distribution of income.     

Income inequality and subjective wellbeing: Panel data evidence from China

Using four waves of longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we examine the effects of income inequality on subjective wellbeing (SWB). We take a dual approach in measuring income inequality, and thus, we examine the effects of inequality using province-level Gini coefficient as well as between-group inequality or identity-related inequality defined as the income gap between migrants without urban household registration identity (hukou) and urban residents. We find negative effects of both province-level income inequality and between-group income inequality on SWB, measured by life satisfaction. Our results also show that the effects of income inequality on SWB is stronger for rural hukou residents compared to urban hukou residents. These findings are robust to alternative ways of measuring SWB and income inequality. In addition, we find evidence suggesting that neighbourhood trust is an important channel through which income inequality operates to reduce SWB. We suggest policies that promote trust in communities with high inequality with a view of addressing the negative effects of inequality on SWB.     

再议因患寡而患不均:中国家庭住宅权属差异及其对内需增长的影响

住宅权属差异导致了家庭住宅财富差异,进而影响了家庭消费偏好.本文基于一个非住宅耐用品消费决策的随机最优控制模型,采用1991—2006年 CHNS 数据并运用动态面板数据模型,考察了家庭住宅权属差异对耐用品消费的影响.本文的主要发现是,同理论预期一致,自有住宅家庭的耐用品消费明显高于租住房屋家庭,而且住宅权属消费效应随着家庭脆弱性增强而下降.本文的政策含义是要通过降低家庭脆弱性、创新保障性住房分配模式来缩小居民住宅权属差异和促进消费增长     

The determinants of income inequality in Thailand: A synthetic cohort analysis

This paper presents tests and estimates of the human capital model of income inequality using synthetic cohort data for Thailand: 1992–2011. The model focuses on four primary determinants of income inequality: mean per capita income levels, the variances in years of education, in the number of children, and in the number of earners in the household. All of these factors are important sources of income inequality in Thailand, with relative impacts that differ across demographic groups and types of household structure. An inverted-U relation between mean per capita income levels and inequality is found, reflecting gender differences of the head of household, differences in household composition, and variation in access to finance. Although the human capital model emphasizes education, estimates presented here show other household characteristics, such as number of children and number of earners, can be even more important sources of inequality.     

Towards a better measure of income inequality in Indonesia

Indonesia has experienced significant economic growth in recent years (on average, 5% in 2000–08), but many people are still living in poverty. Income inequality, as measured by the official Gini coefficient, has also increased. This paper evaluates household income and income inequality in Indonesia, assessing both market and non-market income to reach a more accurate measure of how actual income affects living standards. We find that if household income considers non-market income, income distribution is significantly more balanced, the coefficient of income inequality falls from 0.41 to 0.21 and the income share of the population's poorest deciles increases more than fivefold. The results suggest that market income alone is a misleading measure of income distribution in Indonesia.     

Inequality of opportunity and household risky asset investment: Evidence from panel data in China

Based on the household panel data over three waves in China, this paper investigates how inequality of opportunity of a region affects household risky asset investment. The empirical results show that inequality of opportunity raises both the probability and the share of household risky asset investment in the region. Our key results are robust to a series of sensitivity checks. The heterogeneity analyses tell us that richer and more educated households seem to be affected more by inequality of opportunity of the county they reside in. The paper also tests several possible channels behind the observed relationship, showing that the following channels help bring upon this effect: increasing material aspiration, changing risk preferences, and reducing household expenditures.     

Decomposition of the increase in earnings inequality in urban China: A distributional approach

This study examines changes in Chinese urban income distribution from 1987 to 1996 and 1996 to 2004 using nationwide household data and investigates the causes of these changes. The Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2007, 2009) method based on unconditional quantile regressions is used to decompose changes in income distribution and income inequality measures, such as variance and a 10:90 ratio. The decomposition results show that wage structure effects, such as a widening gender earnings gap, increases in returns to college education, and increases in earnings differentials between industries, company ownership types, and regions, have been the major contributors to the overall increases in income inequality. It was also found that at different points on the income distribution (e.g., the lower or upper half), the contributing factors that increase income inequality are different.     

The inequality of nutrition intake among adults in China

This paper constructs a multidimensional Theil Index to estimate and decompose the inequality of nutrition intake among the adult population in China. Using 1991–2009 China Health and Nutrition Surveys (CHNS), this paper features two major findings. First, we show that the nutrition inequality has remained small in contrast to the large and increasing inequality in population income. Second, using Theil decompositions and Oaxaca–Blinder (O-B) decompositions, we find that, unlike income inequality, nature factors (such as age and gender) and regional factors play a more important role than socioeconomic factors in nutrition inequality. This finding provides a plausible explanation to the different time trends of nutrition inequality and income inequality. Moreover, it suggests that policies that aim to reduce the socioeconomic disparities may not automatically transfer to closing the gap in nutrition intake, which in turn is a potentially important determinant of population health and the long-term economic development.     

Expropriation with hukou change and labour market outcomes in China

We study the labour market outcomes of Chinese household members changing their registration status (hukou) from rural to urban as a result of land expropriation using panel data from the 2008–2010 Rural Urban Migration in China (RUMiC). While it is largely unclear the extent to which expropriation can be viewed as an event exogenous to individual and household choices, we deal with the potential selection bias of being expropriated by using the methodology proposed by Oster (2019). Gaining an urban hukou is found to improve the labour market outcomes of expropriated household heads and spouses relative to comparable rural stayers and rural-urban migrants. In particular, hukou-changers gain better access to permanent jobs in the public sector through formal search channels. We also find that expropriated parents invest substantially more in children's human capital as compared to rural parents, suggesting that leveling the hukou status among children can contribute to reducing intergenerational inequality.     

Individual preferences on trade liberalization: evidence from a Japanese household survey

This paper studies an individual’s preference on trade liberalization using a Japanese household survey, the Keio Household Panel Survey. As a result, we show that preferences toward trade liberalization are affected by economic factors (income, gender, family, asset, and job status) as well as noneconomic factors (noncognitive factors and behaviroal biases). We find that male, educated, and people with smaller family prefer trade liberalization. Furthermore, people who prefer liberty to equality and have less local patriotism, tend to be positive to trade liberalization.

     

Land, Factor Markets, and Inequality in Rural China: Historical Evidence

Drawing on a unique household-level data set from northeast China in the 1930s, this paper explores the connections between the distribution of land, factor markets, and income distribution. We test whether patterns of income inequality were consistent with the predictions of a market-clearing, neoclassical model linking land and labor endowments, through factor markets to household income. While the model is consistent with some features in the data, we reject the hypothesis that factor markets worked perfectly and find support for the historian's intuition regarding the disproportionate impact of land inequality in the countryside. Nevertheless, where markets were more active, especially land rental markets, excess returns to land were diminished and inequality was lowest. This suggests that factor market development played a positive role in reducing inequality in rural China.     

Re-estimating gender differences in income in South Africa: The implications of equivalence scales

Most studies of poverty and inequality in South Africa measure individual welfare by deflating total household resources, such as income, by household size. This per-capita method makes no adjustments for the different consumption needs of children or for household economies of scale. However, in addition to being more likely to live in households where average per-capita household income is lower compared with men, we show that women in South Africa also live in significantly larger households which include more children. These gendered differences in household composition are driven to a large degree by low rates of co-residency between men and women. We therefore investigate how adjusting household resources for the presence of children and economies of scale affects measures of the gender gap in income.     

Where have all the brides gone? Son preference and marriage in India over the twentieth century

Marriage is universal for women in India, but the marriage rate for men varies across regions, where the region is a proxy for shared cultural norms. A preference for sons results in a biased sex ratio towards men and creates a shortage of brides in the marriage market. Using the Indian census of 1931, the article finds that son preference was a regional phenomenon and led to a low marriage rate for men. Using caste‐level information, the article finds no evidence that men from the upper castes enjoyed an advantage in the marriage market as the theoretical literature predicts. The regional differences in gender bias and marriage market outcomes have persisted over the twentieth century and indicate the persistence of cultural values. The long‐run changes show that the marriage squeeze has reduced the surplus of men in all regions; however, the regional differences in son preference and marriage outcomes were still the same in 2001.     

Bequest motive,household portfolio choice,and wealth inequality in urban China

This paper studies the role of bequest motives in household portfolio choices and wealth inequality using a computable incomplete-market life-cycle model with precautionary saving motives, accidental bequests and voluntary bequests. Calibrating the model to match the main features of household finance in China Household Finance Survey, we quantitatively measure the effect of voluntary bequest motives on the household portfolio choices and the wealth distribution in urban China. Our results indicate the importance of bequest motives in shaping the Chinese household portfolio choices and wealth inequality, and have the policy implication on the implementation of inheritance taxes to alleviate the wealth concentration and to promote household consumption in contemporary China.