Cohort Differences in Women’s Employment Patterns in Urban China, 2003-2012

• In Event: 082 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session I
  In Refereed Roundtable: A. Table 19. International Sociology

Abstract

Under the context of complete privatization of care responsibilities and intensified work-family strain in urban China, debates on several issues related to women’s employment patterns remain unsettled: to what extent are women withdrawing from the labor force voluntarily or forced to leave, and who are more likely to withdraw – professional women with higher education or women with less privilege. These questions require a more nuanced analysis beyond the description of changing women’s employment rates on an aggregated level. Previous studies have already shown that employment rates for urban women have fallen significantly since the mid-1990s, largely due to the massive laying off of women workers following the dismantling of labor units in the 1990s (Dong et al, 2006; Giles et al, 2006). But how does the pattern vary by education and profession across cohorts? How are changes in women’s employment patterns associated with changes in population and family structures (by marriage and motherhood status as well as multi-generational coresidence situation)? Moreover, how much of this continuing decline could be attributed to compositional changes as compared to behavioral changes within each subgroup? This study aims to address these questions by tracking cohort changes in employment patterns of college-educated professional and managerial women in comparison to other women, from 2003 to 2012, thereby providing a basic yet necessary step for further inquiries into women’s employment patterns during market transition in China.

Author

• Shengwei Sun, University of Maryland-College Park