China's Rebalancing and Gender Inequality

Download or read book China's Rebalancing and Gender Inequality written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines gender inequality in the context of structural transformation and rebalancing in China. We document declining women's relative wages and labor force participation in China during the last two decades, despite rapid growth and expansion of the service sector. Using household data, we provide evidence consistent with a U-shaped relationship between economic development and women's labor market outcomes. Using a model of structural transformation, we show that labor market barriers for women have increased over time. Model counterfactuals suggest that removing these barriers and increasing service sector productivity can boost both gender equality and economic growth in China.