Women and work in contemporary China. The effect of market transition on women's employment, earnings, and status attainment

Abstract

In (former) socialist countries, women’s economic situation worsened after the start of market transitions. How market transition affects women’s economic situation remains unknown. This dissertation set out to study how various processes of market transition affect women in China. Throughout this dissertation, women’s employment, time allocation on paid and unpaid labor, hourly earnings, and status attainment were examined. This dissertation contributes to the understanding of changes in women’s economic position with market transition by examining the influence of economic transformation as well as that of the cultural shift, namely the re-emergence of traditional gender norms, on women’s economic behavior.

The overall conclusion is that women’s economic situation is not directly harmed by the economic transformations, such as privatization and economic development, led by market transition. It is mainly the re-emergence of traditional gender values with market transition that is detrimental to women’s economic situation. Traditional gender values restrict women’s economic activity and emphasize the role of women to be within the family. As a consequence, women’s working opportunity at the labor market in both urban and rural areas is limited (Chapter 2 and 3). They suffer from a substantial earnings penalty due to motherhood (Chapter 4), and among working women, the influence of their economic resources became less important for children’s status attainment.