Education Development and Wage Inequality in Urban China

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shi Li ◽  
Shanshan Wu ◽  
Chunbing Xing
Keyword(s):  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Returns To Education ◽  
Labor Mobility ◽  
Wage Gap ◽  
Household Survey ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Major Contributor ◽  
Education Development ◽  
Education Expansion ◽  
College Educated

Using a representative household survey for 1995, 2002, 2007, and 2013, we show that education plays a pivotal role in shaping wage inequality in urban China. We find that education was a major contributor to increased wage inequality between 1995 and 2013. The returns to education remained high after 2007 despite a large inflow of college-educated workers. Although regional wage inequality declined from 2007–13, regional wage inequality among educated workers did not. Residual wage inequality increased, and the within inequality of educated workers increased faster than that of the less educated. We argue that China's education expansion seems insufficient to narrow the educational wage gap, and a lack of labor mobility for educated workers prevents the decline in returns to education in specific regions.

scholarly journals Market expansion, state intervention and wage differentials between economic sectors in urban China: A multilevel analysis

Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (11) ◽  
pp. 2631-2651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Liu ◽  
Wei Xu ◽  
Jianfa Shen ◽  
Guixin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Wage Differentials ◽  
Wage Gap ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Wage Premium ◽  
The State ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Sample Survey ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Market Expansion

The rising earnings inequality in China has sparked a heated debate on the socioeconomic outcomes of market transformation. While a large body of literature has focussed on the temporal trend of wage inequality during the reform period, much less attention has been devoted to the structural causes of regional variations in sectoral wage differentials. Using a micro-data sample from the 2005 one percent population sample survey and multilevel methods, this article examines the geographic variability of wage differentials between economic sectors in urban China, with a particular focus on the combination effects of market expansion and state intervention. The results indicate that sectoral wage differentials vary substantially across regions, and that market expansion interacts with state intervention to reconfigure earnings outcomes. Specifically, prefectures located in the interior region tend to exhibit a large wage premium for the state sectors, while prefectures located in the coastal region tend to display a wage advantage of the foreign-invested sector. The wage gap between the state and non-state sectors is smaller in areas with diversified ownership; openness to foreign investment increases the relative wages of foreign-invested-sector employees; stringent government regulation of industries increases the wage gap between the state monopoly sector and the non-monopoly sector; and strong redistributive power increases the wage premium for the public service sector over other sectors. Our findings suggest the necessity to take into account contextually constituted and locally specific wage-setting mechanisms when studying China’s wage inequality.

Econometric Analysis of Returns to Education of Rural and Urban Labour Markets Workers in Tamil Nadu

2020 ◽  
pp. 336-344
Keyword(s):  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
Returns To Education ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Rural Market ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Rate Of Returns ◽  
Education Groups ◽  
Quantile Regression Method

The objective of this study was to empirically evaluate the returns to education of rural and urban labour markets workers in Tamil Nadu using the IHDS data with appropriate Econometric models. First, the present study estimated the earning functions of the rural and urban market's workers by OLS technique and standard Mincerian earning functions. Secondly, the quantile regression method was also used to examine the evolution of wage inequality. The findings of the study showed that the effects of education and experience on the log of hourly wages were positive, and these coefficients were statistically significant. The returns to education increased with the level of education and differed among the workers of rural and urban labour markets. The results showed that the rates of returns to primary, middle and higher secondary were higher in the urban market, whereas those of secondary and graduation were higher in the rural market. The study revealed that the effect of education was not the same across the rural and urban wage distribution. The rate of returns differed considerably within education groups across different quantiles of the wage distribution.

Understanding inequality in public school admission in urban China

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Liu
Keyword(s):  
High Schools ◽  
Secondary Education ◽  
Public School ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Junior High ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Junior High Schools ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Education Development ◽  
Content Type

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply analysis of public discourses on Ze Xiao to explore and interpret the power relationships shaping inequality in admission to public junior high schools in urban China. Design/methodology/approach – This study first introduces the rise of Ze Xiao as an educational phenomenon in China. It then elucidates power relationships in public school admission by analyzing continuities and changes in stakeholders’ interaction in public school admission. It concludes by discussing educational reform for equal public school admission in urban China. Data were collected from written and spoken texts about public school admission, including newspaper articles from the 1980s to the 2000s, policy documents and interviews with relevant stakeholders. Findings – Findings demonstrate that multi-layered power relationships caused diverse inequalities in admission to public secondary education in urban China. These are represented by political and institutional privileges and an imbalance in education development during the social transition from a profit-driven approach in the 1990s to a balance-centered one after 2000. Arguably, there is a necessity to further promote a systematic reform to terminate the privileges and imbalance for an equal and balanced public secondary education in urban China post-2015. Originality/value – This study attempts to make a contribution toward reconstructing the meaning of inequality in admission to public junior high schools in urban areas by revealing the power relationships among stakeholders constituted through their interactions in public education during the different stages of socio-economic development in urban China.

The Gender Wage Gap in Urban China

2021 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 137-164
Author(s):  
Hye‑ryun Weon
Keyword(s):  
Gender Wage Gap ◽  
Wage Gap ◽  
Urban China
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