This study examines changes in Chinese urban income distribution from 1987 to 1996 and 1996 to 2004 using nationwide household data and investigates the causes of these changes. The Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2007, 2009) method based on unconditional quantile regressions is used to decompose...

In contrast to the United States and European countries, China has witnessed a widening gender pay gap in the past two decades. Nevertheless, the size of the gender pay gap could still be underestimated as a result of not accounting for the low-wage women who have dropped out of the labor force....

Using 1987, 1996, and 2004 data, we show that the gender earnings differential in the Chinese urban labor market has increased across the earnings distribution, and the increase was greater at the lower quantiles. We interpret this as evidence of the stronger "sticky floor" effect. We use the...