China & World Economy  / 18–36, Vol. 24,  No. 3, 2016

Gender and Off-farm Employment:

Evidence from Rural China

Xiaobing Wang, Linghui Han, Jikun Huang, Linxiu Zhang, Scott Rozelle*

Abstract

The goal of the present paper is to examine how the expansion of the economy from 2000 has affected rural off-farm labor market participation. Specifically, we seek to determine whether off-farm labor increased after 2000, what forms of employment are driving trends in off-farm labor and whether gender differences can be observed in off-farm employment trends. Using a nationally representative dataset that consist of two waves of surveys conducted in 2000 and 2008 in six provinces, this paper finds that off-farm labor market participation continued to rise steadily in the early 2000s. However, there is a clear difference in the trends associated with occupational choice before and after 2000. In addition, we find that rural off-farm employment trends are different for men and women. Our analysis also shows that the rise of wage-earning employment corresponds with an increasing unskilled wage for both men and women.

Key words: gender, rural China, self-employment, wages