The Impact Of The Position Of Service Industry Embedded In Global Value Chain On Urban Gender Wages In China

Since the reform and opening-up,China continues to open wider to the outside world,actively participate in the international division of labor and the international economic cycle.With the increasing proportion of service trade in global trade,it has become an inevitable trend for China’s service industry to break through national boundary restrictions and participate in the division of labor of global value chain.This kind of research has attracted much attention.On the other hand,Chinese government has always attached great importance to the issue of national income distribution.Under the global value chain division system,China relies on the advantage of low labor cost to actively participate in the international division of labor.However,the skill requirements of the workforce vary depending on the position in the GVCs.Therefore,different positions of service industry embedded in the GVCs will inevitably lead to different structures of labor market.Most existing studies classify the skill level of labor force and explore the impact of the embedded position change on the wages of labor with different skills.However,to some extent,gender differences in the labor force itself determine differences in skill levels.So how will the service industry’s participation in GVCs affect gender wages?Based on UIBE Global Value Chain Database and CHIP Dataset from China Institute for Income Distribution,this thesis constructs an improved model of Mincer’s wage equation and analyzes the impact of service industry’s embedded position in GVCs on gender wage.The results show that the rising position of service industry in GVCs has a positive effect on the wage level of both male and female labor forces,and the positive effect on the wage level of female labor force is greater than that of male labor force,which indicates that the rising position of service industry in GVCs helps to narrow the gender wage gap.Secondly,for the classification of high and low skilled labor force,the embedded position in GVCs of service industry has a greater positive effect on the wage level of low-skilled labor force in general,that is,the rise of service industry in GVCs helps to narrow the skill wage gap.In addition,the difference in demand for skilled labor in GVCs’ position of service industry has affected the gender wage gap to some extent.Based on the research conclusions,this thesis argues that: both upgrading China’s technological level and developing knowledge-intensive industries to enhance the service industry’s position in GVCs are important ways to raise China’s wage level and narrow the gender wage gap;On the other hand,promoting gender equality,improving the employment environment of female labor force and upgrading the skills of female labor force to improve the demand structure of China’s labor market can also be good ways to promote the upgrading of China’s service industry position in GVCs.