Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T09:10:27.065Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gender Disparities in Self-employment in Urban China's Market Transition: Income Inequality, Occupational Segregation and Mobility Processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2013

Qian Forrest Zhang
Qian Forrest Zhang*
Affiliation:
Singapore Management University. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article presents the first quantitative analysis of gender disparities in self-employment in urban China. It documents the extent of gender income inequality in self-employment. By disaggregating self-employment into three occupational classes, it reveals the gender segregation within self-employment – women were concentrated in the financially least rewarding segment – and identifies it as a main source of gender income inequality. I examine a range of determinants of participation in self-employment, including family structure, family background and career history, and how their gender-specific effects contribute to gender segregation. Although using data from a 1996 national survey, this study captures two key processes that shaped the structure of self-employment in contemporary urban China: the restructuring of the state sector and the growth of financial returns and social status in the private sector, both of which contributed to the formation of gender segregation in self-employment.

Keywords

income inequalitygender segregationself-employmenturban Chinastate sector restructuringstratification
Type
Research Reports
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 215 , September 2013 , pp. 744 - 763
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arum, Richard, and Muller, Walter (eds.). 2004. The Reemergence of Self-employment: A Comparative Study of Self-employment Dynamics and Social Inequality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bruun, Ole. 1993. Business and Bureaucracy in a Chinese City: An Ethnography of Private Business Households in Contemporary China. Berkeley: University of California Institute of East Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Budig, Michelle J. 2006. “Intersections on the road to self-employment: gender, family and occupational class.” Social Forces 84(4), 2223–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cao, Yang, and Hu, Chiung-Yin. 2007. “Gender and job mobility in postsocialist China: a longitudinal study of job changes in six coastal cities.” Social Forces 85(4), 1535–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Sarah, and Dong, Xiao-Yuan. 2011. “Harsh choices: Chinese women's paid work and unpaid care responsibilities under economic reform.” Development and Change 42(4), 947–965.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Croll, Elisabeth J. 1999. “Social welfare reform: trends and tensions.” The China Quarterly 159, 684–699.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Deborah. 1992. “Job mobility in post-Mao cities: increases on the margins.” The China Quarterly 132, 1062–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Deborah. 1999. “Self-employment in Shanghai: a research note.” The China Quarterly 157, 22–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickson, Bruce J. 2003. “Whom does the Party represent? From ‘Three Revolutionary Classes’ to ‘Three Represents’.” American Asian Review XXI(1), 1–24.Google Scholar
Du, Fenglian, and Dong, Xiao-Yuan. 2009. “Why do women have longer durations of unemployment than men in post-restructuring urban China?” Cambridge Journal of Economics 33(2), 233–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
England, Paula. 1992. Comparable Worth: Theories and Evidence. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Entwisle, Barbara, Henderson, Gail E., Short, Susan E., Bouma, Jill and Zhai, Fengying. 1995. “Gender and family business in rural China.” American Sociological Review 60(1), 36–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gates, Hill. 1996. China's Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Giles, John, Park, Albert and Cai, Fang. 2006. “How has economic restructuring affected China's urban workers?” The China Quarterly 185, 61–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gold, Thomas B. 1989. “Urban private business in China.” Studies in Comparative Communism 22, 187–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gold, Thomas B. 2006. “Observing private business in China.” In Tsui, Anne S., Bian, Yanjie and Cheng, Leonard (eds.), China's Domestic Private Firms. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 120–127.Google Scholar
Honig, Emily, and Hershatter, Gail. 1988. Personal Voices. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacka, Tamara. 1990. “Back to the wok: women and employment in Chinese industry in the 1980s.” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 24, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Peilin, and Zhang, Yi. 2009. “The professional reintegration of the ‘xiagang’.” In Gold, Thomas B., Hurst, William J., Won, Jaeyoun and Li, Qiang (eds.), Laid-off Workers in a Workers' State. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 159–181.Google Scholar
McManus, Patricia A. 2001. “Women's participation in self-employment in Western industrialized nations.” International Journal of Sociology 31(2), 70–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, Walter, and Arum, Richard. 2004. “Self-employment dynamics in advanced economies.” In Arum, Richard and Muller, Walter (eds.), The Reemergence of Self-employment: A Comparative Study of Self-employment Dynamics and Social Inequality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1–35.Google Scholar
National Bureau of Statistics. 2009. Zhongguo tongji nianjian 2009 (China Statistical Yearbook 2009). Beijing: Chinese Statistical Publishing House.Google Scholar
Rawski, Thomas G. 1995. “Implications of China's reform experience.” The China Quarterly 144, 1150–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reskin, Barbara. 1993. “Sex segregation in the workplace.” Annual Review of Sociology 19, 241–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reskin, Barbara, and Roos, Patricia. 1990. Job Queues, Gender Queues: Explaining Women's Inroads into Male Occupations. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Sabin, Lora. 1994. “New bosses in the workers' state: the growth of non-state sector employment in China.” The China Quarterly 140, 944–970.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shu, Xiaoling. 2005. “Market transition and gender segregation in urban China.” Social Science Quarterly 86(5), 1299–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shu, Xiaoling, and Bian, Yanjie. 2003. “Market transition and gender gap in earnings in urban China.” Social Forces 81(4), 1107–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shu, Xiaoling, Zhu, Yifei and Zhang, Zhanxin. 2007. “Global economy and gender inequalities: the case of the urban Chinese labor market.” Social Science Quarterly 88(5), 1307–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solinger, Dorothy J. 2001. “Why we cannot count the ‘unemployed’.” The China Quarterly 167, 671–688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solinger, Dorothy J. 2002. “Labour market reform and the plight of the laid-off proletariat.” The China Quarterly 170, 304–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, Donald J. 1998. Life Histories and Social Change in Contemporary China: Provisional Codebook. Los Angeles: UCLA Institute for Social Science Research, Social Science Data Archive.Google Scholar
Wang, Jianying. 2009. “Self-employment in urban China: the interplay of gender, capitalism and labour market.” PhD diss., Yale University.Google Scholar
Wank, David L. 1996. “The institutional process of market clientelism: guanxi and private business in a south China city.” The China Quarterly 147, 820–838.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Erik Olin. 1997. Class Counts: Comparative Studies in Class Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wu, Xiaogang. 2006. “Communist cadres and market opportunities: entry into self-employment in China, 1978–1996.” Social Forces 85(1), 389–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Susan. 1991. “Wealth but not security: attitudes toward private business in the 1980s.” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 25, 115–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Liqin, and Dong, Xiao-Yuan. 2008. “Male-female wage discrimination in Chinese industry: investigation using firm-level data.” Economics of Transition 16(1), 85–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Qian Forrest, and Pan, Zi. 2012. “Women's entry into self-employment in urban China: the role of family in creating gendered mobility patterns.” World Development 40(6), 1201–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar