Occupational Segregation And The Impact On The Gender Wage Gap

The gender wage gap in China's labor market is evident. There are many reasons contributing to this situation such as the factor of discrimination, differences between human capital endowment and differences.This paper attempts to do empirical research on this topic.Using the 2000 CHNS data,the total gender wage differential is, by employing Brow Decomposition, divided into four parts. The results show that:of the total wage difference between men and women, the explicable part accounts for 23%,whereas the unexplicable part up to 77%. In the relevant economic theories, the unexplicable part can be considered as gender discrimination in labor market. The study also found that although in the labor market, there is a degree of occupational segregation between women and men, discrimination against women is not harmful But a little beneficcal for women execpt for the management category Where the proportion of the management without discrimination is two times of with discrimination.In addition,this paper also found that among total wage difference between men and women,inner-occupational differencial accounts or 95% whereas inter-occupational differences is about 5%.And,in the inner-occupational differences,the unexplained part of the goes Up to 76%. Thus, gender discrimination still exists, and contributes to remarkable gender wage gap.Since gender discrimination is the primary cause for the remarkable wage differecial.What in the world causes discriminations? Unlike the traditional theory of discriminations, which attributes it to individual preference, and the statistical errors of the labor market, the author argues that the causes of discrimination are closely related to the traditional culture (the traditional division of labor). A theoretical analysis for the relationship between the discriminations and the traditional division of labor conducted within the frame of efficient wage theory, backed by the results of the decomposition, indicates that the traditional division of labor will lead to the discriminations.To sum up, the gender wage gap can be narrowed on the following several aspects:improving women have the quantity and quality of human capital; improve laws and regulations to protect women's rights; an advanced culture of gender.