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 impact of female employment on male salaries and careers: evidence from the English banking industry, 1890–1941

The late nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century British labour market experienced an influx of female clerical workers. Employers argued that female employment increased opportunities for men to advance; however, most male clerks regarded this expansion of the labour supply as a threat to their pay and status. This article examines the effects of female employment on male clerks using data from Williams Deacon's Bank covering a period 25 years prior to and 25 years subsequent to the initial employment of women. It is shown that, within position, women were substitutes for younger men, but not for senior men. In addition, the employment of women in routine positions allowed the bank to expand its branch network, creating new higher‐level positions, which were almost always filled by men.     

Profitability and capital accumulation in British industry during the transwar period, 1913–1924

This article provides new information on profitability, taxation, and capital accumulation across the transwar period, based on an analysis of the accounting records of 30 companies in a range of industrial sectors. The main findings, that apparently high profitability in the war period was largely an illusion, and that the subsequent slump was very severe in its effects on business profitability, are consistent with views of the period as one of low capital accumulation. In effect, the generosity of the state's negotiating position towards capital owners during the war was cancelled out by the combined effects of inflation and of the severe postwar slump.     

高管内部薪酬差距、投资行为与企业绩效—以中国制造业A股上市企业为例

利用2013年沪深A股上市1118家制造企业数据为样本,研究高管内部薪酬差距对投资行为和企业绩效的影响。结果发现:拉大高管内部薪酬差距能够一定程度上促进企业采取积极的投资行为,提高企业投资水平,提升企业绩效,但拉大高管内部薪酬差距不会提高企业投资效率,即企业投资规模的扩大并不意味着投资效率的提高;在不同所有制样本中,拉大高管内部薪酬差距对非国有企业投资水平影响显著,但对国有企业没有影响。研究结果深化了高管内部薪酬差距对企业绩效内在影响的机理分析,为我国上市制造企业高管薪酬的制度设计带来启示。     

Women doing men’s work and women doing women’s work: Female work and pay in British wartime engineering

Extreme demand pressures coupled with acute skill shortages in the run up to World War II caused British engineering companies to break down existing production processes into smaller constituent parts. This allowed the employment of persons trained over narrower ranges of skills and helped to create an exponential growth of female jobs, from 10.5% of total engineering employment in 1939 to 35.2% by 1943. Women were officially classified into those doing men’s work and those doing women’s work. Using a unique data set provided by the Engineering Employers Federation, this paper examines female work and pay from 1935 (the first year of rearmament) to 1942 (the peak of production activity) in more detail than has been previously undertaken. It features the pay and hours of piece- and time-rated women, female-male wage ratios, and an assessment of the war’s longer term impact on the female labor market.     

The development and inequality of heights in North, West, and East India 1915–1944

In this study, we trace the development of height and its distribution in India during 1915–1944. Heights of North, West, and East Indians grew very slowly. Although for this period it has been argued that income inequality declined, we reject our working hypothesis that height inequality declined in parallel with income inequality. In fact, height differences were low during the influenza/famine period of 1918–1920, and the Great Depression period. With the growing openness of the late 1920s, we observe a temporary rise in height inequality. The overall level of height inequality is lower than expected for Indian society that is influenced by a rigid caste system.