Impact of the Global Financial Crisis in Rural China : Gender, Off-farm Employment, and Wages

This contribution documents the effect of the global financial crisis on women's off-farm employment in China's rural labor force. It begins by comparing the difference between the actual off-farm employment rate and the off-farm employment rate under the assumption of “business as usual” (BAU – a counterfactual of what off-farm employment would have been in the absence of the crisis). The study also examines how the impact of the financial crisis hit different segments of the rural off-farm labor market. Using a primary dataset, the study found that the global financial crisis affected women workers. By April 2009, there was a 5.3 percentage point difference between off-farm employment under BAU and actual off-farm employment for women, and the monthly wages of women declined. Most of this impact affected migrant wage earners; however, the impact did not fall disproportionately on women. The recovery of women's employment was as fast as that of men's employment.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Zhi, Huayong, Huang, Zhurong, Huang, Jikun, Rozelle, Scott D., Mason, Andrew D.
Format:	Journal Article biblioteca
Language:	en_US
Published:	Taylor and Francis 2013-08-16
Subjects:	financial crisis, off-farm employment, gender,
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16189
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