Male and female discrimination in labor participation in the Chinese industry. A qualitative analysis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

LIST OF TABLE

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background
1.2 Question description and Hypothesis
1.3 Significance of study:
1.3.1 Realistic significance:
1.3.2 Theoretical significance
1.4. Conclusion:

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Theories based on Becker's model:
2.2. Theories opposite of Becker's:
2.3. Other theories:
2.4. Inadequacies and innovations:
2.5. Conclusion:

CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design:
3.1.1. Methodology
3.1.2. Data
3.2. Data analysis:
3.3. Limitations of the research:

CHAPTER 4. RESULT
4.1. The situation of female participation in ownership in China
4.2 Situation of permanent full time female workers in China's firms
4.3 Situation of female managers in China's firms
4.4 Conclusion

CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION
5.1. Discussion of the reasons for the analysis result
5.1.1 Non-government owned companies have more female participate in the ownerships
5.1.2 Foreign companies have more female permanent workers
5.1.3 Government owned companies have more female top managers
5.1.4Cannot find significant gender gap in labor participation between export and non­ export companies
5.2 Conclusion

CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
6.1. Reason of gender differences in occupational participation
6.1.1 Historical and cultural reason:
6.1.2 Female physiological reason
6.1.3. Labor market reasons
6.1.4. Political reason:
6.2. Recommendation to narrow the gender discrimination in career participate
6.2.1. Strengthen the promotion of gender equality thinking
6.2.2. Improve the quality of female labor force
6.2.3. Clarify legal connotation and enhance operability
6.2.4 Increase Social Productivity

REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank all who have contribute to the successful completion of this project. I would like to express my gratitude to my research supervisor, Prof. Dr. Khondker Aktaruzzaman, for his invaluable advice, guidance and his enormous patience throughout the development of the research.

In addition, I would also like to express my gratitude to my loving parents and friends who have helped and given me encouragement during my university time. Without them, I cannot spend my time in university successfully and happily. They are the important part of my university life.

ABSTRACT

Gender discrimination in labor participation is a global issue. It will hinder the healthy and stable development of the economy and hinder people's equal enjoyment of economic development results.

With the economic transformation and development in China, gender discrimination in labor participation become wider. The paper analysis the development history of the gender discrimination in labor participation in China. My result show that this discrimination has a potential link with the economic situation, especially the type of firms. Based on the China's economic situation and related theory, paper raised related hypotheses and used firm-level data to test whether the hypotheses are valid or not. For the analysis methods, the article used descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing. This paper have six chapters, and the main content for each chapter is as following:

1. Describe the background of the thesis topic, raise questions and hypothesis
2. Introduce Becker's discrimination theory, Chinese researchers' argument and other researcher's attitude not related to the market force.
3. Describe data used in this paper and the analysis method
4. Data analysis result, from the result, the paper got the conclusion that there is gender discrimination in labor participant in China. Gender discrimination has potential relationship with type of firms.
5. Discussion the result and got the conclusion
6. Find the reason to the gender discrimination in labor participant and give the recommendation to anti gender discrimination in labor participant from society, government and personal respectively.

Key words: China; gender discrimination; labor participation; Anti-gender discrimination method.

LIST OF TABLE

Table 4.1.1: Mean different between variable (t-test)- ownership

Table 4.2.1: Mean different between variable (t-test)- permanent workers

Table 4.3.1: Mean different between variable (t-test)-female top managers

Table 5.1.1.1: Mean different between variable (t-test)-female top managers (companies size)

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1.1: The number of female and male participation in ownership in China in 2011

Figure 4.1.2: The number of female and male participant in firms' ownership China in 2011-companies' ownership, business type

Figure 4.2.1: The number of firms with or without permanent full time female workers in 2010

Figure 4.2.2: The number of firms with or without permanent female workers in China in 2010-companies' ownership, business type 22

Figure 4.3.1: The number of firms with or without female top managers in 2009 24

Figure 4.3.2: The number of firms with or without female top managers in China in 2009-companies' ownership, business type 24

Figure 5.1.1.1: The number of firms with or without female participant in the ownership-companies size

Figure 6.1.3.1.1: The scale of labor resources in various countries in 2018 (10,000 people)

Figure 6.1.3.1.2. China's urban labor market during 2001-2019: ratio of supply and demand

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background

Economic growth and development have become the goals to pursue for every country, while inequality among women remains a problem. At the end of the last century, many countries gradually realized that economic development meant not only the improvement of the GDP but also the sustainable development. As the World Bank suggested, the development includes not only higher incomes but also “better education, higher standards of health and nutrition, less poverty, a cleaner environment, and more equality of opportunity, greater individual freedom, and richer cultural life.” The goal of development should equip all people, no matter men or women, to enjoy the outcomes of equal development.

However, the rapid development of economy did not mean a significant change in gender inequality. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2018, published by the World Economic Forum, the overall gender gap score in economic, education, health, and political empowerment aspects was 68%, which means there were still 32% person suffered from gender discrimination. Besides, gender parity progress was still very slow, compared to the gender gap report of previous years and remained almost unchanged after 2017. (World Economic Forum, 2018) The gender gap is most prominent from the perspective of the economy, especially in the wages of the male and female. As indicated by the sub-index in the World Economic Forum's report (2018), economic and opportunity inequalities especially the female-male wage inequalities had had a major impact on the overall gender gap index, where 34% of people still suffered from gender discrimination in their salaries. This suggests that the difference between female and male salary is still a global issue to be solved urgently.

Among nearly 200 investigated countries, China's overall gender gap index ranked 111 and was greatly affected by its sub-index relating to economic and opportunity gap. “This subindex contains three concepts: the participation gap, the remuneration gap and the advancement gap” (World Economic Forum, 2018), and the remuneration gap contributes the most to this sub-index. Hence, it is clear to see that gender inequality issue still exist in today's China and is strongly affect the equality of career participation gap. According to the report of the China Women's Federation, the non-agricultural employment rate for women reached 46.8% in 2010. Compared to rates in 1990 and 2000, it increased 21.8% and 15.7% respectively. However, although the female non-agricultural employment rate has remained at a high level and has increased significantly, gender differences in career participant still exist in China. In addition, although the proportion of women in professional positions with higher professional status continued to be higher than that of men after 2000 (51.8%), the increase rate has dropped from 3.6 percentage in 2000 to 2.2 percentage 2010. Apart from that, there was a largest gender differences in the top managers position. Women just account for only a quarter of this position. Therefore, from the data, it clear to see that gender difference in labor participation is still distinguish in China and is deserved to talked about.

It is necessary to know the historical background and development of the gender gap in career participation before talking about this issue. During the planned economic term (1949-1979), the gender difference in career participation was not significant in China. Since the founding of New China, the Chinese government has made increasing women's labor participation an important measure to promote women's status and achieve gender equality. The government distributed jobs for men and women, and women are seen as the same important workforce as men. During this period, the high female labor employment rate and the economic independence of women made the gap between male and female labor participation rate not significant. Although gender equality was strongly promoted in the field of work, the traditional gender division of work in the family sector continues to exist and does not achieve full equality between men and women. Therefore, when situation changed after the 1980s, the gender gap in labor participation also changed.

The gender gap index examines the gap between men and women across four fundamental categories (subindexes): Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment After 1980s, China's post-reform term, considering the major drawbacks of government intervention, the government introduced a serious of policies to expand the autonomy of state-owned enterprise. The government's unified employment distribution policy was broken and enterprises had more autonomy to determine employees. “In short, the collapse of central planning has provided room for discrimination.” (Ying Chu Ng, 2007)

In 1992, the central government proposed to establish a socialist market economic system, and the reform of state-owned enterprises entered the second stage. During this period, the government focused on the large state-owned enterprises with good development prospects and reduced the support for small and medium-sized enterprises. As a result, many small and medium-sized enterprises with poor operation situation withdraw from the market, leading to an increase in unemployment. Due to differences in productivity and education levels, female workers had become the biggest victims of unemployment caused by this transformation. According to the survey of 1,230 public enterprises in 1993 by the National Federation of Trade Unions, the number of unemployed and laid-off unemployed female workers was 23,000, accounting for 60% of the total number of unemployed and laid-off workers. Dramatically increased female workers in the labor market resulted seller market and because the companies had more autonomy to decide their recruiting policies, female employees became vulnerable groups in the labor market.

In addition to adjusting the structure of public-owned companies, during the reform and opening up period, the Chinese government also encouraged the development of private-owned enterprises and foreign investment. Compared to the public-owned companies, these companies had more freedom on employee choosing.

According to some surveys, for instance, the survey to the female in the non-pubic enterprise in 1998 done by Zhu Min (1998), when the non-public enterprises and foreign investments had brought more employment to the development of China's economy, it had also intensified the gender discrimination in labor participant to some extent. Female workers were always arranged to the lower level positions and were deducted from overtime pay by companies in disguise. This phenomenon can be affected through their salary, among the investigated staffs, the average salary and bonus of female employees were lower than the average and about 10% lower than that of male employees.

From the previous content, it seems that the transformation of the economic system in China had sharpened the issue of gender discrimination in labor participation. However, some scholars argue against this statement. They think the transformation increases the freedom and competitiveness in China’s markets, and the increasing market forces can reduce female discrimination in labor participation to some extent. For example, Becker (1971) said that discrimination employers might have a higher cost of production than those employers who do not, since discrimination employers may prefer to give more salaries to male workers. Thus, the discriminatory behavior in recruitment will be finally punished by the market competition with the increasing cost and gender gap in labor participation will be narrowed. Moreover, the development of private enterprises and foreign investment also provide more choices of work to female. To reach the requirement of the work, female may improve their abilities like education level and narrow the difference with the male. Therefore, this transformation also can enhance the female personal ability and eliminate the prejudice that female workers personal abilities are not as good as that of male workers. This argument can be supported by the data collected by Liu Bohong (2014). The survey illustrated that with the development of China's socialist market economy and the entry of private-owned companies and foreign capital, the number of female labor recruited by companies show an increasing trend. The change can be illustrated by the salaries between women labor and men labors, in 2010, female’s wages accounted for 67.3% of male wages which increased about 38% compared to that in 1994.

China is now in a new round of economic transformation, and its economic structure will inevitably change a lot. The privatization of enterprises and increasing foreign direct investment are major trends. From the perspective of historical development, this structural transformation of the enterprise will lead to an increase in the gender gap in labor participation. Whilst, according to Becker's theory, this transformation is actually conducive to the reduction of the gap. Some firm-level data will be used in this paper to discuss the impact of economic transition on the gender labor participation gap in China and to propose recommendations for China's future healthy economic development.

1.2 Question description and Hypothesis

The main questions talked in this paper include:

- Whether there is gender discrimination in labor participation in stateowned and private companies?
- If the discrimination exists, which types of enterprises have the more distinguish gender gap in labor participation?
- Is the gender discrimination in labor participantion more distinguish in some specific types of firms?
- Whether the economic transformation in today's China will narrow or expand the gender wage gap?

To answer these questions, an analysis will be made basing on real firm-level data. The data will include the information about the female employee participation rate in different positions, business type, companies' ownerships, firms' size and other variables that will be needed to answer the above question raised by the paper. The paper will try to find out whether female workers suffer gender discrimination in the labor participation in difference types of business by comparing the mean difference for each group of data.

Hypothesis The first hypothesis relates to the existing gap between female and male wage in private enterprises and SOEs. In the previous research, for instance, Liu Xiuying (2007), Jiang Yongpin (2004), talked about the economic transformation trend and the gender gap in employment opportunities in China and found that the gender gap became more distinguished with the appearance and development of private enterprises. They thought that with the structural transformation in China’s economy, government power in guaranteeing employment equality became weaker. Private enterprises had more autonomy to formulate their own employ rules. Affected by China’s orthodox gender culture, many employers still hold the prejudice that female labors may spend more time for their personal life, like bringing up children and doing housework, and accordingly decrease their concentration on their jobs. In their minds, compared to male workers, female workers have less productivity and inferior working performance. Hence, when formulating their rules, employers prefer giving female workers less working opportunity than male workers. Therefore, the first hypothesis is as following:

Hypothesis 1: Compared to the SOEs, the gender gap in labor participation in private enterprises in China is more prominent.

For the second hypothesis, this paper subdivides the private enterprises into domestic private enterprises and foreign investment enterprises. According to Becker’s theory that the market liberalization will narrow the gender gap since more non­discriminators enter into the market with lower cost on their male labor wage and then force the discriminators to change their employment distribution strategy depends on gender to lower the production cost and enhance the competitiveness. Therefore, it can be estimated that the more competitive the market is the less the gender discrimination in the labor participation. Dean Jolliffe and Nauro F. Campos (2005) also use the data in Hungary to prove that the market liberalization and increased competitiveness caused the gender gap in job opportunity decrease.

Compared to the domestic private enterprises, foreign investment enterprises face a more wide market and more fierce competitiveness. The strong market force may limited the gender gap in the labor participation. Therefore, according to the results from previous research, hypothesis two is as following:

Hypothesis 2: The domestic private enterprises in China have more significant gender gap in labor participation compared to foreign investment enterprises.

Apart from analyses gender wage gap from the aspect of the market liberalization, some studies also focus on international trade's effect on the gender wage gap. For instance, Feenstra and Hanson (1996) found that the export trade in developing countries increases the job opportunity for female workers. However, if the female workers have lower skill levels than male workers, gender discrimination in salary will increase. Berik et al. (2004) used the data from South-Korea and Taiwan and found that the increased international trade is positive related to the gender gap in job opportunity. However, there are also some opposite arguments, for example, Black and Brainerd (2004) proved that the world trade liberalization during 1976-1993 narrow the gender gap in job opportunity.

China now has increasing number of firms doing business abroad, and these export firms are mostly in manufacturing sectors. Based on the previous research, the extension of export opportunities in developing countries in light manufacturing industries, such as apparel, can offer important prospects for women workers. Because increasing export opportunities will expand firms' market and they need more employers to increase the productivity. Therefore, firms may increase the recruiting number of female labors. Hence, the hypothesis three is as following:

Hypothesis 3: The export-oriented companies in China have more distinguish gender wage gap compared to the domestic-scale companies.

1.3 Significance of study:

1.3.1 Realistic significance:

Currently, the economic transformation in China has entered a new stage. Some new changes have taken place in domestic economic conditions and external situations. During the development period, the negative effects of government intervention in the market have gradually appeared. The unclear boundary between government and market causes long-term monopoly characteristics and power corruption in the state- owned economic sector. Unequal competition in the market and mismatched supply of resources make China's economic growth weak. Therefore, to recall the vitality of the Chinese economy, China has gradually increased its support for non-state-owned enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises when further reform the system in state- owned companies. According to the research result from Yu Qin (2019), the share of assets of state-owned and state-controlled enterprises in total corporate assets has fallen from 48.5% in 2005 to 39.19% in 2017, while other types of enterprises, for instance, private enterprises and foreign-controlled enterprises all show an increasing trend.

The ultimate goal of China's economic consistently transformation is to enable every member of society to enjoy economic development results on an equal. The long-term existence and expansion of the gender gap in labor participation will become the barrier to the health growth of the Chinese economic. Therefore, is significant to analysis whether this trend will narrow or expand gender discrimination in labor participation.

This paper will use the firm-level data to find out gender discrimination in labor participation in state-owned enterprises and private firms and to find out whether the statue of women of China will deteriorate with the further transformation in China economic. The result of this paper will reveal the potential gender discrimination issue and help relative departments to consider this problem and draw attention to this problem in society. Besides, it will also help the government departments relating to the economic transformation to make countermeasure to respond to this issue in order to enhance the sustained and healthy development of the Chinese economy.

1.3.2 Theoretical significance

In recent years, there are basically two different views in the academic filed. Scholars represented by Becker believe that the development of the market will narrow the gender difference in labor participation. Jolliffe and Campos (2005), Hellerstein et al. (2002) all prove the argument announced by Becker. Another group of scholars, such as Zhang Dandan, have proved that marketization will widen the gender difference in job opportunity. This argument also agreed by Li Chulin et al (2008) and Knight, Li (2004).

The results of this paper will objectively discuss these arguments based on China's enterprise-level data and historical background, and provide relevant data support for future scholars studying gender discrimination in China.

1.4. Conclusion:

In this chapter, the article describes the historical and social background of the problem, presents the main issues and conjectures discussed in the article, and describes the significant of the results got from article.

According to the history of China's economic reforms, the article gives the appearance reasons for the gender gap in labor participation and the development process. Then, based on the current situation, questions that will be discussed in this paper are given. By analyzing relevant articles of previous scholars, this paper arises several hypothesis related to the problems. Finally, the paper describes the importance of the research results to China's economic development and academic fields.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

As discussed above, with regard to the effect of marketization on the gender wage gap, scholars currently have two main views. One is that the marketization may narrow the gender gap in labor participation, while another is, on the contrary, the marketization may increase the gender gap in labor participation.

2.1. Theories based on Becker’s model:

In 1957, Becker proposed “employer taste” model in his book The Dconomics of Discrimination. In this model, he simply assumed that the employer has a “taste” or preference to against people from the disadvantaged group, for instance, the employer does not want to employ female workers as much as the male workers even though their productivities are same. If there are only one employer in the labor market or few employers but with the same “taste”, the disadvantaged group will face unemployment. However, if there exist non-discriminating companies, they may use lower wage to employee more workers from disadvantaged groups. Because all the workers have the same productivity, the non-discriminating companies can produce more output with the cost the same as discriminating companies. The greater benefit will also attract other non-discriminating companies and will put downward pressure on the price level and eventually force the higher-cost discriminating firms to withdraw from the market. Therefore, there are less discriminating employees in the market and the gender discrimination in labor participation will be narrowed. Becker's model gives a basic idea that market forces will reduce gender discrimination in labor participation.

Many scholars have also found that the theory from Becker can be applied to practice. Hellerstein, Neumark, and Troske (1996) had proved Becker's theory through the plant and firm-level data in the US. They found a positive short-run relationship between profitability and gender composition of the labor exist in the plants with product market power, so it could prove Becker's theory that gender discrimination in labor participation more likely to exist in where there is product market power. For the long-term, they found little evidence to prove that the market power would punish discriminatory employers. Unlike Hellerstein, Black and Brainerd (2004) focused on the manufacturing industry in the US and tried to find the link between trade and gender discrimination. They used the household data from 1980 to 1990 in the US and divided them into concentrated and competitive industries. For the result, they found that affected by trade shock, the residual gender gap in job opportunity narrowed more rapidly in the concentrated industries than the competitive industries, which can prove that the change of the competitiveness in the market can reduce the gender gap in labor participation. For the countries outside the US, Oostendrop (2004) used the data from more than 80 lower- and higher- income economies and got the result that the reduced gender gap in job participation is associated with the increased trade. Jolliffe and Campos also did related research based in Hungary. They used household-level data from 1986 to 1998 and got the same conclusion that the market liberalization can cause a decline in the female-male difference in labor participation.

2.2. Theories opposite of Becker’s:

Even though many scholars prove Becker's theory through empirical analysis, market liberalization does not have a uniform impact on the gender gap in labor participation in transitional economies. Brainerd (2000) showed that the gender gap in job opportunity in the post-economic transition period widened in Ukraine and Russia, but narrowed in Eastern European. Other scholars also got the results that are the opposite of Becker's theory through empirical analysis.

For instance, Bhattacharya and Rahman (1999) found that in Bangladesh, deregulation, and liberalization resulted from the economic reform just narrowed the gender gap in job opportunity during 1983-1990, but increased it during 1990-1997. In India, Menon and Rodgers (2009) found that policy reform during 1983 to 2004, like licensing deregulation and tariff reduction, increased the competitive force in the concentrated manufacturing industries and widened the gender gap in labor participation. As for the countries in East Asia, through analyzing the panel data set of residual wage gaps trade rations, and alternative measures of domestic concentration for Taiwan and Korea during the 1980s and 1990s, Berik, Rodgers, and Zveglich (2004) found that the increasing trade openness widen the gender gap in job opportunity rather than narrow it. When focussing on the influence of increasing trade openness, some scholars also found that the export-oriented trend resulted by this transformation may increase the gender gap in labor participation. For instance, Feenstra and Hanson (1996) found that if female workers have relatively lower skill levels than male workers in the export-oriented manufacturing industry, gender discrimination in participation in difference position will increase.

2.3. Other theories:

The transformation in China adjusts the planned economy to a market economy. Internal mechanisms, like the relaxation of state control and the development of the private sector, and the external influences, like foreign competition through trade liberalization, were used to loosen the central control and stimulated market competition. The dramatically economic transformation in China influenced a lot to the gender gap in labor participation, so many scholars did their researches focus on China. For example, Gustafsson and Li (2000) examined the determinants of urban wage in China from 1988 to 1995 by using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition and found that the wage gap in urban China increased during the transformation period. This can explain, on the other hand, that during the economic transition in China, men and women are not absolutely equal in the labor participation. LiYing and Xiao Yuan (2010), they used the unique employer-employee matched dataset to analyze the gender gap in job opportunity in the post-reform Chinese industry and also found that reforms contributed to increasing gender inequality instead of narrowing since it broke the support and protection women received under central planning.

The economic transformation always takes some change in the companies’ structures. Therefore, apart from the analysis of the relationship between increased competitiveness and the gender gap in labor participation, some scholars also tried to relate gap with a different type of companies, like separated companies into private and public. For example, Zweimuller and Winter (1994) used ordered response model to calculate the gender gap in job opportunity in private and public sector jobs in Austria and found that both sectors all had gender discrimination, but the level in public was lower than that in private sector. Zweimuller and Winter-Ebmer (1994) documented the changing pattern of gender differentials in job opportunity between the employees in state and private sectors during the 1979-1992 period and also got the conclusion that public sectors had much lower levels of an average gender gap than the private sectors. According to the previous researches, there is a standard finding that the gender gap is higher in the private sectors than in the public sectors. There are few articles focus on the companies’ types and gender gap in labor participation in China. However, from the previous paper, we can find that many scholars agreed with the idea that the gender gap in labor participation in state sectors is less than the private sectors.

2.4. Inadequacies and innovations:

From the previous research results, it can be seen that scholars have made a comparatively detailed and comprehensive analysis of the impact of marketization on the labor participation difference between men and women. Based on the different national economic and cultural background scholars have produced two different views. Some experts insist that marketization reduces the labor participation difference between men and women, and the others are against this perspective.

The related researches based in China were mainly talking about the relationship between market liberalization trend and the gender gap in labor participation. The results got from the previous researches on the impact of China's marketization on labor participation differentials between men and women are more consistent. Many scholars believe that marketization undermines the government's protection of women's working right, thereby increasing the labor participation gap between men and women. However, for the study based in China, there are few articles especially focus on the relationship between different types of companies and the gender gap in labor participation. Besides, when analyzing the relationship, many scholars use individual- or householder-level data, compared to the firm-level data, these data have relatively stronger subjectivity. Therefore, to fill these gap the article will use firm­level data and depends on the structure and ownership to separate the companies into serval different groups.

2.5. Conclusion:

In this chapter, the article describes the results of previous scholars' research on gender discrimination in labor participation. Three different viewpoints were discovered. The first one is based on Becker's theory that the development of a market economy will reduce gender discrimination in labor participation rates. Another view is that the market economy undermines the Chinese government's protection policy for women's employment, so it actually increases the gender discrimination in labor participation rate. The third view is based on the development of different types of businesses rather than the competition in market economy. This view suggests that some specific forms of companies, such as private companies, have higher gender discrimination in labor participation than state-owned enterprises since they have more autonomy to go to develop their own employment and employee policies.

In addition, the article evaluates the previous research methods and data, finds out its inadequacies, and proposes corresponding compensation methods that will used in this paper to fill these gap.

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

This chapter is about the research methods and techniques, such as the source of the data, data treatment, and analysis used in the thesis research. The research objectives are introduced at first and then will describe how to used the methodology to attain the research objectives.

3.1 Research Design:

The objective of this research is to find whether there is gender discrimination in career participation in Chinese firms. Based on the results of the analysis, paper will give a brief estimation for the development of gender discrimination in labor participantion in future's Chinese firms. To attain this objective, the approach selected in this paper is empirical study and used quantitative analysis to analyze the secondary firm level data.

3.1.1. Methodology

Paper used empirical research. Empirical research is based on observed and measured phenomena and derives knowledge from actual experience rather than from theory or belief. Through using this research method, the hypotheses in Chapter 1 can be proved to be valid or not effectively. Quantitative analysis is the main analysis method used in this research. Compared with qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis can test hypotheses more objectively. Applying to this article, quantitative analysis can observe the relationship between gender discrimination and firms' types (based on the ownership and business scope). The analysis result can help identify how gender discrimination in career participant changes as the type of firms in China changes. Therefore, a brief prediction of gender gap in labor participantion in China will be gave in the paper and it can help the government or society to prepare for the future situation.

Considering data collection time, data availability and sample size, the data used in this paper is secondary data collected by World Bank. Compared with using first data, the secondary data used in the article provides more sample capacity, and the data collection method is more authoritative and comprehensive, enabling more accurate verification of hypotheses.

3.1.2. Data

The data used in this study were extracted from the Enterprise Surveys conducted by the World Bank and its partners across all geographic regions and cover all size of the companies. This surveys are administered to a representative sample of firms in the non-agricultural formal private economy. The firms’ sectors includes the entire manufacturing sector, the services sector and the transportation and construction sectors. Public utilities, government services, health care, and financial services sectors are not included in the universe. Survey used uniform universe, uniform methodology of implementation, and a core questionnaire are the basis of the Global methodology under which most Enterprise Surveys have been implemented since 2006. The Enterprise Surveys collect a wide array of qualitative and quantitative information through face to face interviews with firm managers and owners regarding the business environment in their countries and the productivity of their firms.

The paper focus on the Chinese data related to the gender. The data describe several dimensions of gender composition in the workforce in China. Depends on the hypothesis raised in this paper, thesis selected three groups of gender related data, which are ‘the percent of firms with female participation in ownership’, ‘percent of firms with a female top manager’ and ‘proportion of permanent full-time workers that are female’. These three groups of data were collected from 2,700 companies in China after the year 2009.

3.2. Data analysis:

The paper use STATA to analysis the data. The method used in data analysis is descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing (t test). Descriptive statistics is the first level of analysis, and it can helps the paper to summarize the data and find patterns. The descriptive statistics held in the research results are “mean” and “standard deviation”. From the mean value, the paper can briefly has an overview of the situation of gender discrimination in career participant in China. Whilst, standard deviation value can describe the degree of dispersion of the data mean. The larger standard deviation represents that mean value is less represent, and the difference between most data and the mean value is larger. The smaller standard deviation means that the mean value is more representative, and most of the data are close to the average value.

Hypothesis testing is a method of statistical inference. For the hypothesis testing, the significance level α chose in this paper is equal to 0.05. If the p value (probability) less than the α=0.05, the null hypothesis will be rejected and the alternative hypothesis will be considered statistically significant under the α=0.05. From the hypothesis testing, the paper can find whether the hypothesis in Chapter 1 valid or not.

3.3. Limitations of the research:

First, from the data perspective, data is not time series data but cross-sectional data. There is no way for cross-sectional data to show trends in gender discrimination in job engagement. The article can only use t test to find out whether gender discrimination in a job is related to the type of company.

Then, based on the future development trend of the Chinese economy, the development situation of such gender discrimination is inferred. The speculated trend is not effectively proven by the data and lacks authenticity. Secondly, from the data analysis method, the article divides the selected overall data into two groups according to different enterprise types and commercial scopes, and uses t test to understand whether there is a significant difference between the two groups of data. The premise of this test is that the two total transcripts are independent, and each sample population is normally distributed. The article does not verify these two premises, so the results are not rigorous.

Thirdly, from the perspective of data classification, the article is only classified according to the type of business and the type of business, and does not take into account the differences between different industries (such as classification into services, manufacturing), so the conclusions are more general. . China's service industry and other tertiary industries are developing at a faster rate. If the article can continue to be subdivided according to the type of industry, the results will be more instructive.

CHAPTER 4

RESULT

4.1. The situation of female participation in ownership in China

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure 4.1.1 The number of female and male participation in ownership in China in 2011

To investigate the gap between men and women in job participation, the paper first to see the difference in the participant of the ownership, so the thesis choose the data group illustrate the percent of firms with female participation in ownership. Data used in the paper is collected by the World Bank in 2011 and is in the non-agricultural private economy area.

Figure 4.1.1 illustrates the number of firms owned by female and male respectively. The total number of firm under investigated is 2,700. The number of male owned firm is 1,063 and of female owned firms is 1,037. From the bar chart, it is clearly to see that the female participation in ownership in China is over number the male participation. Therefore, from the overall picture, it is difficult to get the conclusion that female has the discrimination when they participant in firms' ownerships.

To make the results more rigorous, the article continues to further analyze the above data based on the different ownership (domestic & foreign, government-owned & non-government owned) and business type (export & non-export).

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure 4.1.2. The number of female and male participant in firms’ ownership China in 2011-companies’ ownership, business type

Figure 4.2.2 shows the number of the investigated companies segmented based on domestic and foreign ownership, government and non-government ownership and business type (export or non-export).

Table 4.1.1 Mean different between variable (t-test)-ownership

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Table 4.1.1 illustrates the analysis result of the female participant in the ownership based on three categories. From the analysis, there are significant mean difference between government owned and non-government owned companies (t=-5.481, P<0.05). Moreover, from unilateral detection, the hypothesis that there are more female participate in the ownership in non-government owned companies compared to that in government owned companies is valid.

4.2 Situation of permanent full time female workers in China’s firms

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Figure 4.2.1. The number of firms with or without permanent full time female workers in 2010

Figure 4.2.1 gives the information about the firms in China that with or without permanent full time female workers. Data group chose is to describe proportion of permanent full-time workers that are female, and was collected in 2010 and had 2,264 observations. It is significant to see that the firms with permanent full time female workers are greater than that the firms without. Hence, just based on the quantity of firms that have or not have female workers, is difficult to find whether gender discrimination exist in the labor participation of full time worker. The paper will continue analysis the data by divided them into three categories (domestic and foreign ownership, government and non-government ownership, export or non-export)

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Figure 4.2.2 The number of firms with or without permanent female workers in China in 2010-companies’ ownership, business type

Figure 4.2.2 gives the information about the number of investigated firms by divided them into three categories. Chart shows the number of investigated firms under domestic or foreign ownership, government or non-government ownership and export or non-export companies.

Table 4.2.1 Mean different between variable (t-test)-permanent workers

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Table 4.2.1 shows the analysis result of data for the proportion of permanent full­time female workers. From the result, it easily to see that the mean proportion of female permanent workers are all below 50%. There are significant mean difference between domestic owned and foreign owned firms (t=-2.257, P<0.05). In addition, the hypothesis that the mean difference of proportion of permanent female workers in domestic owned companies is higher than that of the foreign owned companies is valid (p<0.05). Hence, the result got can be illustrated as that comparing to the foreign- owned firms, domestic firms have less permanent female workers.

4.3 Situation of female managers in China’s firms

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Figure 4.3.1 shows the statistical result of the number of firms with or without female top managers in 2009. There were totally 2,696 firms under the investigation. According to the chart, quantity of firms with male top managers (2,399) are moreover the firms with female top managers (297). Therefore, from the perspective of the number of female senior managers, it can be seen that there is a large degree of gender labor participation difference in the position of top managers.

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Figure 4.3.2. The number of firms with or without female top managers in China in 2009-companies’ ow nership, business type

Figure 4.3.2 shows the number of firms after divided 2,696 firms into three categories, based on the ownership (domestic or foreign, government or non­government) and business scope respectively.

Table 4.3.1. Mean different between variable (t-test)-female top managers

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Table 4.3.1 show the analysis result of the female top managers. From the analysis, there is a significant mean difference between government owned and non-government owned companies (t=2.155, P<0.05). Apart from that, the hypothesis that the mean of proportion of female top managers in the government owned companies is more than that in the non-government owned companies is valid. Therefore, it can be said that government owned companies has more female top managers compared to the non­government owned companies.

4.4 Conclusion

The paper choose three groups of data from World Bank to analysis, which are “percent of firms with female participation in ownership”, “Proportion of permanent full-time workers that are female” and “Percent of firms with a female top manager” respectively. Based on each group, the paper subdivision the data into another three categories that are “government owned companies and non-government owned companies”, “domestic owned and foreign owned companies” and “export and non­export companies”. The results got are showed as bellowing:

1. Compared to the government owned companies, non-government owned companies have more female participant in ownership
2. Compared to the domestic owned companies, foreign owned companies have more female permanent workers.
3. In general, Chinese companies have significant gender differences in the position of executives. Compared to the non-government owned companies, government owned companies have more female top managers.
4. There are no significant mean differences between export and non-export companies in all three groups of data.

CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION

5.1. Discussion of the reasons for the analysis result

5.1.1 Non-government owned companies have more female participate in the ownerships

From the first analysis result, non-government owned companies have more female participate in the ownership. According to the hypothesis in the Chapter 2, because government owned companies have less authority to make their own decisions, it considered have less gender discrimination in the job participate. However, the result seems conflict to the hypothesis.

The reason for this result can be explained by the choice of female investors and the size of the firm. Based on the physiological characteristics of women, female investors prefer smaller companies. In their careers, traditional women have to take responsibility for raising and caring for their children, so social activities are less than men. Accordingly, less social resources and professional experience will obtained by women. Hence, with limited financial resources, the human and social capital needed to build and sustain successful businesses can hinder women's investment or start large companies. In addition, the smaller size of the business allows female owners to invest less energy and have more flexible time to look after the families. In this paper, the data sets on female participation in ownership are classified according to the size of the enterprise. As shown in the table 5.1.1.1, under the condition of α=0.1, there is a significant average difference between the data of medium and large companies and small companies (t=-1.669, P < 0.1). In addition, the conjecture of female owners of small companies more than the female owners of medium and large companies proved to be effective (t=-1.669, P<0.05). The result can prove that more females participant in the ownership in medium and large size companies than the small size companies.

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Figure 5.1.1.1 The number of firms with or without female participant in the ownership-companies size

Table 5.1.1.1 Mean different between variable (t-test)-female top managers (companies size)

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Because Chinese state-owned enterprises are supported by the government's economic policies, the scale of enterprises is relatively large, and the scope of business is relatively wide. Investing in such companies requires more financial resources and social capitals. Therefore, compared to men, there are fewer women to participate in the ownership of state owned companies.

This analysis result cannot effectively reject hypothesis 1 the paper provided in chapter 1. It cannot prove that state-owned companies' policies result in this gender difference in the participant of the ownership.

5.1.2 Foreign companies have more female permanent workers

According to the analysis of the proportion of permanent full-time female workers in various companies, the result is that foreign-owned companies have more permanent full-time female workers. This conclusion is the same as the hypothesis 2 made in the article in the first chapter.

As Baker theory said, market competitiveness can lead to a reduction in gender discrimination in companies. Compared with domestic ownership, foreign ownership companies face larger market and more intense competition. Therefore, based on market competition, foreign ownership companies will have more female employees. In addition, from a social point of view, with the increasing rationality of the Chinese consumer market, more and more consumers are paying attention to the ethics of foreign companies from a single product. The pressure of public opinion has also narrowed the gender discrimination in employment of foreign companies to a certain extent. Finally, from the perspective of corporate ethics, the more developed market economy in the West has led many foreign companies to have their own comprehensive corporate ethics. In addition, the Chinese government is also increasing the management of foreign investment.

Overall, compared to the domestic owned companies, foreign companies have less gender discrimination in permanent work participant.

5.1.3 Government owned companies have more female top managers

Based on the analysis of the percentage data of the third group of female executives, it is concluded that Chinese enterprises have significant gender differences in the position of senior management. State-owned companies have more female executives than other ownership companies.

This result can correspond to the hypothesis1 proposed in the first chapter. Hypothesis 1 assumes that state-owned enterprises have less gender discrimination in employee employment than other ownership companies.

First, the gender differences in executive positions are consistent with the glass ceiling effect. According to the report of Lynn Morley Martin, who had served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, the glass ceiling effect can be defined as “those artificial barriers based on attitudinal or organizational bias that prevent qualified individuals from advancing upward in their organization into management­level positions”. The first reason for this effect is social prejudice, which is particularly evident in China. Influenced by Confucianism and other traditional ideas, women are often considered to be focused on family life. Therefore, many employers believe that female employees are less focused on work than men, thus reducing women's promotion opportunities. The other is the unfair degree of education of men and women, which leads to women's quality skills generally lower than men, so the job selection and promotion opportunities are less than men.

For the reasons why state-owned companies have less gender difference in top manager position, it can be talked from two categories. From the perspective of state- owned enterprises, they are greatly affected by government policies and have less discretion in hiring employees. In order to ensure social equity and maintain long-term healthy economic development, the relevant policy requirements will prompt state- owned enterprises to reduce gender discrimination in employee employment. From the perspective of other ownership companies, they have more discretion in terms of employee employment rules. China's abundant labor resources have created the seller's market, and given these companies more choices, so the gender discrimination in employee employment has further intensified.

5.1.4 Cannot find significant gender gap in labor participation between export and non-export companies.

This result is not aligned with previous researches and the hypothesis raised in Chapter 1. From previous research, manufacturing industries, such as clothing, often rely on employees with low levels of literacy but with relevant skills. The level of education of women in developing countries is usually lower than that of men, so female job seekers more concentrate on the manufacturing industry. Therefore, if the difference of gender gap in labor participant can be clearly identified between export and non­export companies, it should be under two precondition. The first is that export oriented companies are mostly in manufacturing industry. The second is that the quality of female labor is lower than the male labor, and female job seekers are focus on the manufacturing industry.

The hypothesis of the article cannot be verified because the data collected may not concentrated in the manufacturing industry like clothing or light manufacturing companies. If the data contains more textile or electronics companies, the types of employees needed are different, resulting in a significant increase or decrease in the employment of female employees. Second, changes in the quality of female workers should also be considered. Because the education level of Chinese women has been improved, the number of women seeking employment in the manufacturing industry has decreased, so no obvious differences can be seen.

Therefore, in the absence of data support, the article cannot absolutely reject the assumptions presented in Chapter 1.

5.2 Conclusion

In this chapter, the paper basically discusses the analysis results and give related reasons to explain the results. According to the analysis of data results, Chinese companies have gender differences in labor participant, and it is clearly reflected in the position of top managers. This phenomenon can be explained from both social related and female physical character related aspects. In addition, glass ceiling theory is found to be explained the phenomenon that there are less female top managers in Chinese firms.

Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2 can be validated by the analysis results. Firstly, it can be concluded that government-owned companies have smaller gender gaps in career participation than other ownership companies. The degree of autonomy of companies in hiring employees and the degree of government policy intervention can explain this result well. Secondly, the result shows that compared with domestic ownership enterprises, foreign-owned enterprises have less discrimination against women in career participation. Becker's theory of market competitiveness applies to this result, and this phenomenon can also be reasonably explained from the perspective of public opinion and government supervision. Because the analysis result cannot showed significant mean differences between export and non-export companies’ degree of female workers career participant, the Hypothesis 3 cannot proved valid.

CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Based on the analysis and discussion of enterprise-level data, the article concludes that Chinese companies do have gender discrimination in their participation in work, especially in higher positions. From the perspective of business types, state-owned enterprises have less discrimination against women in terms of job participation than other ownership enterprises. Compared with domestically owned enterprises, foreign- owned enterprises have less gender discrimination in their work participation.

China is now in the midst of economic transformation, state-owned enterprises will be further privatized, and more other ownership companies will appear in China's economic system. From the analysis results, the reduction of state-owned enterprises will deepen gender discrimination in work participation. In addition, the results also show that domestic ownership enterprises have more gender discrimination in terms of job participation than foreign ownership enterprises. With the increase in domestic ownership, gender discrimination in job participation is predicted to rise. Therefore, it is not possible to make an optimistic forecast that China's future economic transformation will reduce gender discrimination in professional participation.

In this chapter, the article will identify the reasons why women are discriminated against in terms of job participation, and make recommendations for these reasons to maintain the sustained and healthy development of the Chinese economy.

6.1. Reason of gender differences in occupational participation

6.1.1 Historical and cultural reason:

In Chinese more than 2,000 years' feudal society of China, people's thinking is limited to traditional culture such as Confucianism. Traditional Confucianism believes that men are superior to women, and women should be more involved in family than political work. Although China's reform and opening up has increased the equal rights of women to participate in work, this traditional thinking still has a lagging effect on modern society. According to the 2010 survey of the Women's Federation of China Women's Federation, although modern women have their own jobs, more than half of women (54.8%) and men (61.6%) believe that men should take on more society. responsibility, while women should take on more family responsibilities (National Women's Federation, 2010). This kind of thinking often leads female workers to deepen their "female consciousness" and the social image of traditional women. Therefore, compared with men, women may have less concentration on career, and their career and willpower are weaker than men.

In addition, social division of labor is also the cause of inequality in work participation. Women's domestic work burden is heavier. Women account for more than 75% of most or all of the “cooking”, “washing clothes” and “care for children”, while men are below 16%. (National Women's Federation, 2010) Such an excessive burden of household chores often prevents women workers from balancing work and family well, so they will invest less in their work than men.

6.1.2 Female physiological reason

Because of the physiological characteristics of women, most female employees are unable to perform the same daily work during pregnancy, and labor productivity is lower than usual.

Article 5 and 6 of the "Special Provisions on Labor Protection for Female Employees" in China stipulates that employers shall not engage in the employment of female employees who are obstructing maternal and child health, and shall not reduce their wages due to pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding of female employees. Dismissal, termination of labor or employment contract. At the same time, Article 8 also states that the employer has the responsibility to bear the medical expenses for the birth or abortion of female employees and the maternity allowance during maternity leave.

Therefore, according to the above-mentioned laws and other relevant regulations, although female employees will reduce labor productivity during pregnancy, employers still need to pay wages and bonuses during maternity leave for female employees, and bear the cost of job vacancies. This is the direct reason for employers to reduce the employment of female employees. In addition, when female employees return to work, they also need a certain amount of time to resume normal labor productivity. According to the relevant laws and regulations, the wages of the employer to the returnees shall not be lower than the level at the time of withdrawal, which in turn imposes additional costs on the employer. At present, the retirement age of female workers in China is 55 years old, and the average working time is 35 years. Compared with 35 years of employment time, women's production recovery time accounts for a large proportion, and the losses caused are not negligible for enterprises.

In addition to the losses caused by pregnancy production, female employees also take care of family children during the work period, so women's social network will also decrease. Women have less social resources and work experience than men. With this in mind, employers will reduce female employment and reduce female employees in important positions.

6.1.3. Labor market reasons

From labor market perspective, the reason of gender discrimination can be divided into three categories, which are supply and demand, employers' objective and labor quality.

6.1.3.1. Demand and Supply of the labor market

China is the country with the most abundant labor resources in the world. As shown in Chart 7, China has 80.86 million laborers in 2018. But the role of labor resources needs to match social resources. In other words, when there are enough positions in the market, labor resources can be fully utilized. However, with China's economy and political system reform, many state-owned enterprises have reduced their staff and increased efficiency, and state agencies have reduced the number of institutions and reduced the demand for labor. According to the survey conducted by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China (Chart 8), from the perspective of the urban labor market, supply is greater than demand, and this trend is rising. Under this circumstance, the surplus labor force forms the labor seller market, and the employer has more negotiating rights than the laborer. Employers will raise the barriers to employment and set gender conditions to select workers who match their preferences.

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Figure 6.1.3.1.1. The scale of labor resources in various countries in 2018 (10,000 people)

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Figure 6.1.3.1.2. China's urban labor market during 2001-2019: ratio of supply and demand

6.1.3.2. Employers pursue the maximization of benefits:

With the continuous development of China's socialist market economy, the goals of many enterprises have gradually moved closer to maximizing their own interests. Therefore, when the employer hires an employee, more will consider the cost of his own. Female employees have additional natural attachment costs relative to male employees. Hence, when a company hires female employees, in order to reduce costs and maximize their own interests, they will be more inclined to hire male employees.

6.1.3.3 Labor quality:

At present, the overall quality of Chinese women's culture is not high, which is one of the direct reasons for women's employment difficulties. According to Chart 5, the education level of Chinese female employees is still concentrated in primary and junior high schools, and the proportion of high-quality female employees is small. So when choosing jobs, especially in knowledge- and technology-intensive industries, women are less competitive than men. In addition, because women are limited by their level of education, when they are engaged in certain types of work, they have relatively few opportunities for promotion. This is also the reason why there are fewer female employees in the position of top manager in the company.

Female additional natural attachment cost is the means that women, in addition to social work, also need to spend time and energy on childbirth, raising children, doing housework and other housework.

Table 5. Education level of female employed persons in China's population aged 15 and over in 2008 (%)

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6.1.4. Political reason:

First, China's existing legal provisions protecting the rights of female employees are too principled and lack detailed rules. For example, the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests stipulates that “the State protects women from working rights equal to men's rights”. This provision does not detail the content of the rights and the measures taken by the relevant authorities to safeguard women's labor rights.

Second, because of the continuous development of China's market economy, the company's goals have gradually changed. Enterprises pursue maximum benefits, but the laws that protect female employees actually increase the cost of the business, so many companies choose to reduce female employees to avoid this “gender loss”.

Third, the enforcement and supervision of laws protecting the rights of female employees is insufficient. For example, the law stipulates that it is not allowed to hire or raise the standard for female employment on the grounds of gender. However, in the actual job search situation, it is difficult to supervise the potential gender discrimination of the company. It is also difficult for women to use the laws that are lack of implement ability as weapons of confrontation.

6.2. Recommendation to narrow the gender discrimination in career participate

6.2.1. Strengthen the promotion of gender equality thinking.

From the perspective of the government, the government can actively carry out publicity, training, seminars and exchanges on gender mainstreaming. It can continuously enhance the gender equality awareness of relevant government departments, and promote the concept of gender equality into the mainstream of decision-making. Second, the government can also guide social thoughts, such as punishing and boycotting gender-discriminatory content in the media. It is also possible to set up relevant organizations to conduct statistical analysis of gender, evaluate relevant issues, and follow up on the status quo of gender in real time.

From the perspective of society, society can establish relevant non-government organizations to collect the gender discrimination issues and report to the related government sector. At the same time, it is also possible for the society to organize spontaneous publicity activities or demonstrations to popularize the idea of gender equality.

6.2.2. Improve the quality of female labor force

To improve the quality of female workers, we must first start by promoting education equality between men and women. For example, for remote areas that still retain the traditional ‘female patriarchal' idea, the government can first conduct correct ideological guidance, such as telling the families that female can also can bear most of the responsibility of supporting the elderly and the family if they got the ability as same as men. Secondly, a special supplementary policy for women's education can be implemented to ensure that women of the appropriate age have financial support to engage into education. From the perspective of school educators, teachers should correctly educate students about the equal opportunities of men and women. In addition, they should communicate with the student family in time to ensure that the family can continue investing in girls' education. Apart from that, from the perspective of female themselves, they should strengthen their awareness of gender equality. Actively play their role in school activities and dare to compete with men to get the opportunities for further development. Change the status quo of education inequality between men and women from their own perspective.

6.2.3. Clarify legal connotation and enhance operability

Regarding gender discrimination in employment, there is no clear definition of gender discrimination in job opportunity in China. For example, according to international conventions, gender discrimination in employment refers to any act that violates the right to equal employment, such as discriminating, rejecting or giving preferential treatment to workers, based on gender factors, and infringing the labor rights of vulnerable workers.

In addition, law enforcement agencies and remedies for anti-employment gender discrimination can also be considered. Institutions can oversee the implementation of the right to protect employment equality, investigate gender equality issues in companies and research solutions. At the same time, the organization can also support the victims to prosecute or prosecute the relevant companies, or even warn and punish the relevant units with gender discrimination in employment.

The relief mechanism should be a social security system that protects the rights of women outside the enterprise. For example, the establishment of a socially compensated maternity insurance system, which is managed by social burdens and socially specialized institutions, and reduces the burden on firms to pay for female employees. Companies can also consider establishing flexible working hours, with no fixed working hours and days. Working hours are determined through the consultation between employees and the employers. Some strategy like concentrated work for certain amount of time and concentrated have vacation can be considered. This can provide long-term holidays for female employees without reducing their productivity and companies’ profits.

6.2.4 Increase Social Productivity

In addition to the above methods mentioned in the paper, the fundamental method to promote women employment is to develop social productivity. It is the development of productivity that pushes women into the labor market, and also is the imbalance development of social productivity that makes women receive unequal treatment when they are trying to participate in the jobs. Developing social productivity can increase jobs opportunity, and especially increase the number of mental jobs, for instance, high­tech or education-related jobs, and then reduce the physical disadvantage of women themselves relative to male workers. Therefore, it can improve the present unequal employment situation between male and female labors.

All in all, from the analysis, it can be estimated that the development of private companies and domestic owned companies may increase the gender discrimination in career participation. Therefore, unequal employment gap between men and women is an inevitable problem in the future development of China's economy. The negative impact of this problem on the economy can be reduced from the perspective of individuals, society and government.

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