The Effects Of Minimum Wage On Gender Difference Of Employment

After nearly20years of practice, the minimum wage system has become one of the basic security systems of China. In the process of the increase of the minimum wage, its impacts on the economy and society have gradually emerged. Thus, correctly understanding and evaluating the effects of the minimum wage system will be conducive to the perfection and implementation of the minimum wage system in the future. By reviewing the changes in labour cost in recent years, the author finds that the rise in the minimum wage has become one of the important factors and a powderhose to the rise in the labour cost. When the profits of the enterprises gradually decline, the rise in the labor cost will further squeeze the profit margins of the enterpries, which will inevitably promote the enterprises to change the mode of production and labor demand. So, the pursuit of labor efficiency will lead to the structure contradiction of the employment and, hence, the gender difference of employment enlarges. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the inherent relations between the gender difference of employment and the rise in the minimum wage and to identify how well the rise in the minimum wage leads to the gender difference of employment from the perspective of the quantity relationship. In this paper, the research contents are as follows:(1) This paper puts forward a new calculation method for the minimum wage standard. The author calculates the minimum wage standard by the weighted average method which considering the adjustment time, the implementation time and the minimum wage bracket. Based on the new minimum wage standard, the author compares the minimum wage standard of different regions. The author also compares the minimum wage standard with the economic development index and the average wages of different industries of China and the foreign minimum wage standards. The paper thinks that the current minimum wage standard of China is low and still has a passive pressure to further increase.(2) This paper researches the changes of the gender difference of employment. The research shows that the gender difference of employment in China’s urban areas reflects a deepening differentiation between regions or between industries. And the gender differences of employment in most industries or areas have expanded. However, the gender differences of employment in most developed countries have tended towards convergence in recent years.(3) This paper explores the theory mechanism of the impact of minimum wage on the gender difference of employment. The paper argues that the rise in the minimum wage will influence the employment through direct effect and indirect effect and the effects on employment are different between male workers and female workers. To the female workers the negative impacts are greater and, hence, the gender difference of employment emerges. The paper further studies the consequences when the rise in the minimum wage leads to the expansion of the gender difference of employment. The paper thinks that, under certain conditions, the negative effect to the male group is much greater than the negative effect to the female group if the male group with discrimination tendency excludes the labor of the female group.(4) This paper studies the crowding-out effect of the rise in the minimum wage to the employment of female workers in China’s urban area from the static perspective. The paper thinks that, from the national level, the rise in the minimum wage will cause a negative effect to the gender difference of employment in urban area. This means that some female workers have been crowded-out from the formal employment sectors of urban area and the crowding-out effect mainly reflects a structural contradiction. The research shows that a1%incease in the minimum wage will cause a decline of0.512percentage in the gender difference of employment and a1%incease in one year lag of the minimum wage will significantly cause a decline of1.083percentages in the gender difference of employment.(5) This paper studies the influence of the rise in the minimum wage to the employment in China’s different industries from the dynamic perspective. The paper argues that the effects of the rise in the minimum wage have differentiated in different industries. The current and lagged effect are opposite, which shows that there exits a self-correction machanism in the effect of the minimum wage to the gender difference of employment. The research results show that the current effects of the minimum wage to the gender difference of employment are positive in agriculture-forestry-husbandry-fishery industry and extractive industry while the effects in other industries are negative and the lagged effects of one year are negative in agriculture-forestry-husbandry-fishery industry, extractive industry, traffic-transportation-postal service industry while the effects in other industries are positive. But the absolute values of the overall effect in different industries are all small.