Proceedings of The 4th International Conference on Management, Economics and Finance
Year: 2021
DOI:
Gender identity and relative income within households: Evidence from China
Han Dongcheng, Kong Fanbo, Wang Zixun
ABSTRACT:
How does conforming to traditional gender roles affect women’s labour out- comes? To investigate this question, we use the discontinuity test and fixed effect regression with the time lag to measure how married women in China diminish their labour outcomes and maintain the breadwinning status of their husbands. In the first part of the research, the discontinuity test exhibits the missing mass of married women who just earn more than husbands, and we take it as evidence that these women are diminishing their earnings under the influence of gender norms. In the second part of the research, we use fixed effect regression with time lag to assess the change of labour outcomes in the future if a woman currently earns more than husband. Our results suggest that it will not affect women’s labour participation decisions, yet women would reduce their yearly incomes and weekly working hours in the future. Heterogeneous studies are conducted to show that low-income and less educated married women are more susceptible to the influence of gender norms. JEL Codes: D10, J12, J16.
keywords: Gender identity norms, Female labour force participation, Spouse’s rela- tive earnings.