The Impact Of The New Marriage Law On The Wage Of Married Women And Its Mechanism

It is an indisputable fact that there is a gender gap in the labor market of China.A large number of scholars have explored the causes of the gender gap in the labor market from the perspective of "institution".However,the traditional research mainly focused on the labor market institution,and relatively few studies have focused on "the non-market institution".From this perspective,the study examines the impact of the New Marriage Law on the wage of married women,and identifies its mechanism.This paper expands the research horizon of gender gap in the labor market from the perspective of "the non-market institution",deepening the research on the impact of the New Marriage Law on women’s interests,and makes up the research blank on the impact of the New Marriage Law on the wage and welfare of women in the labor market of China.On the basis of literature review,using the CFPS panel data of 2010 and 2014 and the difference-in-difference strategy,this study shows that the New Marriage Law has significantly reduced the wage of married women by about 1.5 yuan/hour.A series of robust tests,such as correcting for sample selection bias,parallel trend tests,elimination of the policy expectation effect,reconfirmation of the policy impact,sensitivity analysis,and so on,all prove that this effect is robust.Then,this paper analyzes the heterogeneity by education and age,and shows that the negative effect of the New Marriage Law is more significant in the sample of married women with high school education or above and married women under 40 years old.Finally,this paper analyzes the effect of the New Marriage Law on married women’s labor supply and job disutility using the difference-in-difference method,and verifies the mechanism of the New Marriage Law and married women’s wage.Mechanism analysis suggests that the New Marriage Law negatively influences married women’s intrahousehold property rights and reduces their intrahousehold bargaining power and the return of housework,making married women feel insecure and driving them to reduce reservation wages and increase labor force participation,and further leads to crowded markets and changes in supply and demand.Based on the above empirical results,this paper puts forward policy suggestions as follows: 1.Introducing the perspective of social gender in the legislation process of marital property institution and paying attention to the construction of supporting systems.2.Accelerate the clarification of the retroactive effect of relevant judicial interpretations of the Marriage and Family Part of the Civil Code,and confirm the principle that part of its provisions shall not be retroactive.