Gender Earnings Disparity and Discrimination in Urban China: Unconditional Quantile Regression

In this paper, the authors use data from the Chinese Household Income Projects (2002 and 2007) to analyse the earnings disparity between genders and a female inner group. The unconditional quantile regression finds that the negative effects on earnings of marriage and taking care of children has significantly decreased since 2002, especially for women. But the high return rate to education of female workers is not as significant as before, and the return rate to work experience is falling even faster. Along with the increasing gender earnings gap, the unexplained gap (gender discrimination) has also increased over time and is particularly pronounced in the female higher earnings group.