Retirement policy,employment status,and gender pay gap in urban China

China’s current retirement policy has been in effect since 1978. The legal retirement age is 50 years for female workers, 55 years for female cadres, and 60 years for male cadres and workers; women can retire 5 or 10 years earlier than men. This difference in legal retirement age may affect wage growth in those approaching retirement. Based on China’s Urban Household Survey data set, this study investigated the influence of retirement age differences on the gender pay gap. From age 30 to 49 years, the wage difference between female workers and cadres increased by approximately 15 % more than that of men. After consideration of possible endogeneity problems and demonstration of the robustness of the regression results, the study determined that such differences were likely caused by gender and identity differences at retirement age. Among workers and cadres, the retirement age policy exacerbated gender differences in wages through working hours, wage rate, career promotion, and job change activity in those approaching retirement.     

The contribution of multinationals to wage inequality: foreign ownership and the gender pay gap

Review of World Economics - While an abundance of studies exists documenting the significant wage premium of multinationals (MNE) and the effects of foreign direct investments on wage inequality,...     

Continued export trade,screening-matching and gender discrimination in employment

The screening mechanism of export trade facilitates enterprises to increase their recruitment threshold, which in turn has a biased impact on the employment of heterogeneous individuals. Incorporating export trade, screening-matching and gender discrimination in employment into a unified analysis and applying propensity score matching estimation on the basis of the theoretical framework of micro-enterprise and the optimized behavior of job seekers, this paper examines the relations between export trade of industrial enterprises and female labor employment levels in China during 2005–2007. The results indicate that: (1) the number and ration of female employees are increasing with the size and growth of the enterprise export, regardless of enterprise exports continuity. It demonstrates that export expansion does play a critical role in mitigating gender discrimination in employment. (2) For the enterprise with higher export continuity, there is a significant effect toward improving the number and proportion of female employees, conversely the worse effect. Thus, it is significantly meaningful to mitigate gender discrimination in employment by ensuring the continued export capacity of enterprises. (3) Comparing to the promoting effect of growth in the number of female employees, export has limit effect up on increasing the proportion of female employees. Therefore, it is rather difficult to resolve the issue of gender discrimination in employment by relying completely on exports expansion. Based on research findings, this paper discusses the policy implications in terms of easing gender discrimination in employment and promoting employment equity.     

Parenthood and the gender wage gap in urban China

Using data from the Chinese Household Income Project survey and decomposition methods, this study explored the influence of parenthood on the gender wage gap in urban China in 2002 and 2018. Our findings showed that the employment rate is lower for women than men in both childless and with child groups, and the gender gap expanded from 2002 to 2018. The data revealed a parenthood wage penalty in 2002 and a parenthood wage premium in 2018. Moreover, the parenthood wage penalty was greater for women than for men and contributed to the formation of the gender wage gap. We also found that three components: motherhood wage penalty, fatherhood wage premium, and gender wage gap in the childless group contributed to the formation of the gender wage gap. From 2002–2018, the motherhood wage penalty decreased, whereas the fatherhood wage premium increased.     

COVID-19 and the employment gender gap in Japan

This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected female employment in Japan. Our estimates indicate that the employment rate of married women with children decreased by 3.5 percentage points, while that of those without children decreased by only 0.3 percentage points, implying that increased childcare responsibilities caused a sharp decline in mothers’ employment. Further, mothers who left or lost their jobs appear to have dropped out of the labor force even several months after school reopening. In contrast to women, the employment rate of married men with children was not affected, which hindered progress in narrowing the employment gender gap.     

Parenthood penalty and gender wage gap: Recent evidence from Thailand

This study first examines the evolution of gender wage gap in Thailand, using cross-sectional data from the Labor Force Survey (LFS) for 1985–2017. We find that education, occupation, and industry significantly contribute to gender wage gap convergence in Thailand. Furthermore, for females, the wage gap between mothers and non-mothers has increased over time, while for males, the changes are relatively small. Thereafter, we examine the gender wage gap associated with marriage and parental status, using panel data from the Socio-Economic Survey (SES) for 2005–2012, and find wage penalty for both motherhood and fatherhood in Thailand.     

Superior female education: Explaining the gender earnings gap trend in Thailand

It is well-known that along with Thailand's remarkable increase in real income per capita during 1985–2005, an increase in overall income inequality was observed. What is not documented in the literature is that, during the same time period, the gender earnings inequality declined considerably. This paper seeks to identify the main factors that contributed to the decline in gender earnings gap in Thailand's wage and salary sector during 1985–2005. A parametric methodology, the Neumark (1988) version of the Blinder–Oaxaca (1973) method, is implemented in order to decompose gender earnings gap. I also make a methodological contribution by proposing a way to modify the DiNardo–Fortin–Lemieux (1996) nonparametric decomposition method so that its results are comparable to those from the Neumark version of the Blinder–Oaxaca method. The key findings of this paper are as follows. First, I find that increases in female education and changes in unobserved factors, which were concurrent with modernization, were the main sources of the decline in gender earnings gap. Second, over time, improvements in the education of females in this sector surpassed that of males. However, the superior education of females did not result in females earning higher than males due to the existing counteracting effect of the unexplained factors. Finally, the nonparametric investigation corroborated the results from the parametric methodology.     

Projecting the U.S. gender wage gap 2000–40

This paper projects the gender wage gap for 25–64 year old Americans for the period 2000–40. The analysis uses data from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (PSID) for 1995 and 1996 together with the U.S. Census Bureau demographic projections. The method combines the population projections with assumptions regarding the evolution of educational attainment in order to first project the future distribution of skills and, based on these projections, the future size of the gender wage gap. The main set of projections suggests that changing skill characteristics—specifically educational attainment—will continue to close the gender wage gap. However, even in 2040, a substantial pay gap of at least 75 percent of the size of that in 1995 will remain.     

Import competition and the gender gap in labor force participation: Evidence from China

Does import competition explain the gender gap in labor force participation? The distributional consequences of trade liberalization have fascinated decades of economists and policy makers. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that import competition enlarges the gender gap in labor force participation in China during 1990 and 2005. The results are robust to various identification challenges, including contemporaneous confounders, treatment effect heterogeneity, and spatial correlations in standard errors. The magnitude of the gender-differential effects of import competition on labor force participation grows by age, and peaks for people aged 46–50. The household division of labor appears to explain the gender-differential effects. Import competition also leads to a relative contraction of female-intensive industries, and reduces the share of female employees in each industry.     

内部薪酬差距与公司绩效--基于上市公司的实证研究

本文以2007-2010年A股上市公司为研究样本,研究在不同的环境下,高管团队与普通员工的薪酬差距对公司绩效的影响。研究发现：高管团队与普通员工的薪酬差距对公司绩效起促进作用。锦标赛理论成为近年来解释我国上市公司内部薪酬差距对公司绩效影响的有效理论。随着企业员工薪酬的不同,高管团队与普通员工的薪酬差距对公司绩效的影响也会不同。具体表现在,与员工薪酬比较低的企业相比,在员工薪酬比较高的企业中,加大高管团队与普通员工的薪酬差距将更有利于公司绩效的提高。此外,企业性质也会影响到薪酬差距对公司绩效的作用。具体来说,与国有性质企业相比,非国有性质企业的薪酬差距对公司绩效提升的促进作用更大。     

Equal Employment Opportunity Law and the gender wage gap in Japan: A cohort analysis

In this article, I perform a cohort-based analysis of the female-to-male wage gap using aggregate data in Japan from 1975 to 2005. While the inter-cohort closing in the gender wage gap is apparent, the convergence is smaller when the gap is calculated for each level of education. This pattern suggests that a certain portion of the gender wage convergence is due to changes in the educational composition of the workforce. I find that educational composition changes played a larger role in closing the pay gap for younger cohorts than it did for older cohorts. Highly educated women who entered the labor market after the enactment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law gained in that they had more regular full-time employment but did not experience wage gains relative to their male counterparts.     

Why is the gender earnings gap greater in Korea than in the United States?

It has long been recognized that the gender earnings gap varies across countries. This paper examines the relatively higher gender earnings gap found in the Korean labor market compared to the US labor market. Using the data set representative of the population for both countries, I found that the significant part of the differences in the gender earnings gap simply arise from the differences in the observed characteristics of women among two countries. In particular, relatively lower labor market experience, current job tenure, and educational attainment by Korean female workers play dominant roles in explaining the observed higher earnings gap. In addition, wage structure and labor market discrimination seem to be against Korean female workers compared to US female workers. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (4) (2007) 455–469.     

Sickness, absenteeism, presenteeism, and sick pay

The annual cost of absenteeism from the workplace in the UKhas been estimated to be over 1% of GDP. The traditional approachto a discussion of absence has been for the firm to passivelyaccept both wages and sick pay and allow workers to choose theirabsence behaviour. Most empirical research has been based onthis approach. However, if absence is costly why should firmspay extra-statutory sick pay? One reason may be the phenomenaof presenteeism (ill workers attending work). This may adverselyaffect productivity. This paper shows that allowing for presenteeismhas important implications for both the design of optimal wage-sickpay contracts and for the interpretation of empirical studies.Specifically, we show that firms will offer a level of sickpay greater than the statutory minimum.     

Historical gender discrimination does not explain comparative Western European development: evidence from Portugal, 1300-1900

Gender discrimination has been pointed out as a determining factor behind the long-run divergence in incomes of Southern vis-à-vis Northwestern Europe. In this paper, we show that women in Portugal were not historically more discriminated against than those in other parts of Western Europe, including England and the Netherlands. We rely on a new dataset of thousands of observations from archival sources covering six centuries, and we complement it with a qualitative discussion of comparative social norms. Compared with Northwestern Europe, women in Portugal faced similar gender wage gaps, married at similar ages, and did not face more restrictions on labor market participation. Consequently, other factors must have been responsible for the Little Divergence of Western European incomes.     

Changes in gender wage discrimination in the 1990s: A tale of three very different economies

In this paper gender wage decompositions are performed for three very different countries, that is, Japan, Russia and the USA for the years of 1993 and 2000, using the ISSP data set. From the research of this paper, it is shown that the gender wage differential in Japan has narrowed between 1993 and 2000, and the results reveal price and characteristics effects for this country that differ markedly from those observed elsewhere, with female disadvantage being particularly marked. Also, this paper finds that gender wage differentials in Russia and the USA have increased during the years considered here.     

The gender earnings gap: effects of institutions and firms--a comparative study of French and Australian private firms

This paper uses two employer-employee linked data sets to investigatethe interactive role of labour market institutions and firmwage policies on the gender earnings gap. Extending the Juhnet al. (1991) decomposition methodology, a new decompositionmethodology is proposed to investigate the role of firm wagepolicies on the gender earnings gap. Two countries with differentwage bargaining systems, Australia and France, are used to conducta comparative study. It is found that firm wage policies inAustralia play a much larger role in narrowing the gender earningsgaps than in France. This is mainly due to the fact that Australiahas a more decentralised wage bargaining system and that suchsystem is operated under an environment where there is a strongunion presence.     

An empirical analysis of the gender earnings gap between the public and private sectors in Korea: A comparative study with the US

This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the gender earnings gap in the public and private sectors by comparing the cases in Korea with those in the US. Using comparable data sets by the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for the US and the Korean Income Panel Study for Korea, this study decomposes the gender earnings gap in order to identify the causal factors. One of the main factors attributable to a much lower gender earnings gap found in the Korean public sector is the self-selection by female workers with high levels of human capital who decide to enter the public sector. Another factor is the differing levels of efforts made by institutions, in areas such as wage structure, the enforcement of gender equality related laws, and the provision of paid family leave, which may affect differently the gender earnings gap in the public and private sector jobs. The empirical results of this study suggest that the differing levels of institutional efforts lower the gender earnings gap within the Korean public sector.