1、Cambridge Journal of Economics 2009, 33, 233252doi:10.1093/cje/ben034Advance Access publication 17 October 2008Why do women have longer durations ofunemployment than men in post-restructuring urban China?Fenglian Du and Xiao-yuan Dong*This paper provides the first systematic analysis of the reasons
2、why women endurelonger unemployment durations than men in post-restructuring urban China. Thisanalysis is based upon data obtained from a national representative householdsurvey. Rejecting the view that women are less earnest than men in their desire for re-employment, this analysis shows that women
3、s job search efforts are handicapped bya lack of access to social networks, unequal entitlement to social re-employmentservices, higher earnings losses from job separations for women, and unfairtreatment of women with respect to mandatory retirement.Key words: gender inequality, Unemployment duratio
4、n, ChinaJEL classifications: J16, J21, J64, J71, R201. IntroductionIn the past decade, Chinas public enterprises have undergone dramatic labour re-trenchment. Public sector restructuring has brought an end to the era of cradle-to-gravesocialism and lifetime employment for Chinese state workers. Whil
5、e industrial restructur-ing is an inevitable feature of market transition, the reform has affected men and womendifferently. Studies have shown that women were laid off at much higher rates than menand experienced greater difficulty finding re-employment. As a consequence, women hadhigher unemployme
6、nt rates than men and their unemployment periods were much longer(Appleton etal., 2002; Giles et al., 2006). Restructuring has also led to a sharp reduction inlabour force participation rates, particularly for women (Dong et al., 2006; Maurer-FazioManuscript received 25 September 2007; final version
7、 received 8 July 2008.Address for correspondence: Xiao-yuan Dong, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB Canada R3B 2E9;email: x.donguwinnipeg.ca* Economics and Management School, Inner Mongolia University, China and University of Winnipeg,Canada. This work was carried out with financial and scientifi
8、c support from the Poverty and EconomicPolicy (PEP) Research Network, which is financed by the Australian Agency for International Development(AusAID) and the Government of Canada through the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Th
9、e authors also thank the Ford Foundationfor its support of the postgraduate economic research and mentoring programme for young womeneconomists in China. We have benefitted from discussions with Yaohui Zhao and from the valuable commentsof two anonymous reviewers.C211 The Author 2008. Published by O
10、xford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society.All rights reserved.et al., 2007). The deterioration of womens employment status has made feminization ofurban poverty a real possibility in China.In this paper, we analyse gender differences in unemployment durations in urb
11、an Chinausing a nationwide household survey undertaken in 2003. While the impacts of economictransition on gender differentials in wages and labour force participation have been thefocus of much research, studies of the gender dynamics of unemployment are scarce. Ahandful of researchers have documen
12、ted gender disparity in the durations of unemploy-ment in transition countries, but none have investigated the underlying causes of thisphenomenon (e.g., Appleton et al., 2002; Giles et al., 2006; Ham et al., 1999).1Usinga duration model, we fill this void in the literature and investigate the main
13、reasons whywomen have longer unemployment periods than men.In the literature for established market economies, gender differences in unemploymenthave been analysed from two perspectives. The conventional view stresses the differencesin preference between men and women. It is argued that women have h
14、igher un-employment rates and longer unemployment periods because their desire for employmentis not as strong as mens. This is because women tend to place more importance onhousehold responsibilities than wage employment and are more likely to have analternative source of income (e.g., Barrett and M
15、orgenstern, 1974; Johnson, 1983; Kulik,2000). Indeed, the age cohort of women that is most likely to have young children accountsfor a large proportion of the female group that experiences a longer duration ofunemployment. Studies have also found that spousal income has asymmetrical effectson unempl
16、oyment duration, lengthening womens unemployment periods but shorteningmens job search periods (Lentz and Tranaes, 2005).The alternative school of thought focuses on institutional factors that disadvantagewomen in the labour market. Feminist scholars have long contended that gendersegregation and do
17、mestic responsibilities have excluded women from powerful socialconnections, hampering womens labour market outcomes (King and Mason, 2001;Timberlake, 2005). Laid-off workers with limited access to social networks may have a lowprobability of finding a job, as it is widely recognised that personal c
18、onnection andinformation networks play pivotal roles in facilitating job searches in a market economy(McCall, 1988).Analysts have also noticed that re-employment incentives may differ between men andwomen separated from regulated sectors due to the gender disparity in displacement costs(Crossley et
19、al., 1994; Madden, 1987; Maxwell and DAmico, 1986). In accordance withthese studies, workers who are separated from the sector paying economic rents (e.g., theunionised sector) and subsequently find new jobs in competitive sectors endure earningslosses because the pre-displacement wage overstates ma
20、rket worth for these workers; theseearnings losses are particularly pronounced for women. In light of the empirical evidencethat the gender earnings gap is relatively small in unionised organisations, where wage rulesstipulated in collective bargaining agreements restrain managerial discretions (Elv
21、ira andSaporta, 2001; Hirsch and Schumacher, 1998), women displaced from the unionisedsector would lose not only the rents accrued to all union members but also the gender-specific protection provided by the union. As a result, laid-off female workers may undergo1Ham et al. (1999) use the Oaxaca dec
22、omposition method to analyse the extent to which the genderdifference in unemployment durations is attributable to observable characteristics and to regressioncoefficients in the Czech and Slovak Republics. They do not offer an explanation as to why the effects ofobserved characteristics differ betw
23、een men and women.234 F. Du and X. Donglonger search periods than their male counterparts for new wage offers that meet theirexpectations.The gender bias of employers in firing and hiring is another widely recognisedinstitutional factor that may contribute to the gender gap in unemployment duration.
24、Employers may hesitate to make a job offer to a woman due to the perception that women,especially married women, are less flexible, less mobile or less competent (see Azmat et al.,2006). However, it is always difficult to test sex discrimination in labour market outcomes.In recent years research on
25、gender outcomes of the structural adjustments of the 1980s indeveloping countries has led to a growing awareness that economic policies that areseemingly gender-neutral can impede gender equity and disadvantage women in the labourmarket when implemented through economic institutions that have and tr
26、ansmit genderbiases (e.g., Beneria, 2003; Elson, 1995).In the following, we will use the above discussion as a framework to seek answers to thequestion: to what extent is the gender gap in unemployment durations in post-restructuring urban China attributable to the differences between mens and women
27、sattitudes toward wage employment and to changing labour market institutions? A betterunderstanding of the nature of womens high unemployment is of considerable importancefor evaluating its welfare implications and designing effective labour market policy.The remainder of this paper is organised as
28、follows. In the next section, we provide anoverview of labour market reforms and changes in womens employment in urban Chinaand identify the institutional factors that may lead to gender-differentiated outcomes in re-employment. We frame our hypotheses and describe the empirical methodology in Secti
29、on 3.Data and descriptive statistics are presented in Section 4. The regression results are reportedin Section 5. In the final section, we summarise the main results and discuss their policyimplications.2. Labour market reforms and womens employmentUnder central planning, womens full labour force pa
30、rticipation played a central role inChinese leaders endeavors to advance womens position in society. As a result, Chinesewomens labour force participation rates were among the highest in the world. With thepolicy of equal pay for equal work, the gender earnings gap in China was remarkably smallby in
31、ternational standards (Croll, 1983). The advancements of women in the labourmarket fostered a culture that valued womens economic independence. Despite thisprogress, the position of women in the labour market remained worse than that of men.Women were over-represented in collective enterprises, whic
32、h offered lower wages andfewer benefits than did state firms. Moreover, womens full employment was achieved inthe context of import substitution, which emphasised capital-intensive heavy industriesand neglected labour-intensive light industries and commercial services. As a result,women were concent
33、rated in positions that would be considered redundant in a commer-cialised environment.1China began its gradual transition to a market-oriented economy in the late 1970s. Inthe post-reform period, the declining influence of socialist ideology led to a re-emergence1Dong and Putterman (2003) estimate
34、that between 20% and 40% of workers in SOEs received wagesthat were greater than their marginal revenue products and were vulnerable to redundancy in the early 1990s.Using data on Chinese manufacturing enterprises in the late 1990s, Zhang and Dong (2008) and Dong andZhang (in press) find that the re
35、lative wage of female to male workers was higher than their relativeproductivity in SOEs. This result indicates that female workers in the state sector historically received wagepremiums and consequently accounted for a disproportionate share of the sectors labour surplus.Gender inequality in unempl
36、oyment duration in China 235of traditional patriarchal values, pressuring women to leave the labour market and returnhome (Yee, 2001).1However, analysts have found that Chinese womens attitudes towardwage employment had not changed much up until the mid-1990s. Meng (2002) comparedthe patterns of mar
37、ried womens labour force participation between mainland China andTaiwan in 1995. She found that, despite nearly two decades of market reform, the labourforce participation rates of women with young children in mainland China remainedmarkedly high, in sharp contrast to womens labour market behaviour
38、in Taiwan. Indeed,womens employment continued to grow between 1978 and 1995, with womens share inurban employment rising from 32.9% to 39.4% (Dong et al., 2006).The pace of labour market reforms greatly accelerated after Deng Xiaopings famoussouthern tour. In 1994 a new Labour Law was passed, which
39、sanctioned the right ofemployers to dismiss workers. In 1997, the Chinese government launched a large-scalelabour retrenchment program in an attempt to revitalise state-owned enterprises (SOEs).As a result, employment in SOEs fell from its peak of 109.6 million in 1995 to 69.2 millionin 2002. The co
40、llective sector, which had been cut off from state subsidies long beforeSOEs, had also been shedding jobs since the early 1990s, resulting in the elimination ofmore than 20 million positions during this period (Dong et al., 2006).Post-restructuring Chinese cities saw a sharp increase in unemployment
41、. Throughanalysis of data from two nationally representative surveys, Dong et al. (2006) found thatthe unemployment rate of women was higher and grew faster than that of menfrom 9.0%for women and 7.6% for men in 2000 to 12.7% for women and 8.2% for men in 2003. Aswe mentioned in the introduction, pr
42、evious studies documented that female workers weremore likely to be retrenched and less likely to be re-employed than male workers during therestructuring period (Appleton, et al., 2002; Giles, et al., 2006). Our analysis in Section 4indicates that womens long duration of unemployment was a major dr
43、iving force for thegender gap in unemployment rates in the late 1990s.Laid-off public-sector workers, both male and female, had to confront serious obstaclesto labour market re-entry; however, the challenge was particularly great for women.Because public-sector downsizing was, for the most part, a c
44、onsequence of economicstructural adjustments, many laid-off workers lacked the skills necessary to fill the newlycreated positions (Lee, 2000). The problem of skills mismatch was arguably morepronounced for displaced female workers since the planned economic regime offered fewersuitable jobs for wom
45、en than men and hence women acquired fewer human capital skillsfrom their pre-displacement experience than their male counterparts. While the growth oflabour-intensive manufacturing production and tertiary industry creates more jobs that aresuitable for women, female workers displaced from SOEs may
46、experience difficultycompeting with young female rural migrants for positions in these sectors (Dong andBowles, 2002).21In this study, traditional patriarchal values refer to Confucian moral philosophy that respects men anddespises women, assigning women responsibility for domestic labour and curtai
47、ling womens access to marketwork. During the Maoist socialist era, gender equality was promoted through equal rights enshrined in the1950 Constitution, changes in the 1950 Marriage Law, promotion of womens participation in productionand access to education (Li and Zhang, 1994). Western feminists hav
48、e argued that, while women had beenincorporated into production, there was sustained, reformed and even strengthened patriarchal control overwomen in marriage and the domestic economy under the socialist era (Stacey, 1983). However, otherresearchers have argued that the status of women did improve (
49、Li, 1995) and women have reported havingbeen liberated during the Mao period (Rofel, 1994).2Private enterprises preferred young rural migrants to laid-off SOE female workers, perhaps because thelatter were older and less tolerant of poor labour standards than the former.236 F. Du and X. DongMoreover, as a result of sweeping labour market reforms, private information networksand personal connections (guanxi) have become the main mechanisms through whichworkers search for jobs. Giles et al. (2006) argue that access to information networks isparticularly impo
