Post on 16-Apr-2019
Women’s Wage Employment and Childcare in Rural China
Hongqin ChangBusiness Administration College, Taiyuan University of Technology
Xiao-yuan Dong
Department of Economics, University of Winnipeg
Abstract:China’s transition from a centrally planned to a market economy has substantially created many job opportunities for women in rural areas, raising the concern about how the childcare provision may affect women’s labor market participation. This paper examines the impact of childcare availability on the wage employment of rural Chinese women and women with preschool children. The analysis shows that the presence of daycares in the community is positively associated with the wage labor force participation and labor hour supply of all rural women and women aged 40-55 years, but it has no effect on women with preschool children. The analysis also shows the costs of daycares for older children are negatively related with women’s labor hour supply.
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1. Introduction
Rapid economic growth in China of the past thirty years has been accompanied by a
dual transition from a collective/planned economy to a private/market economy
starting in 1978 (Barry Naughton 2007). During the past three decades, the
most noticeable impact of this change has been the transformation of the agricultural
labor force (Zhang et al., 2004). The emergence and development of rural
nonagricultural labor markets has created many job opportunities (Meng, 2000), and
the nonagricultural labor force participation rate has risen significantly in rural areas,
along with the rest of the nation (Lohmar et al., 2001; Rozelle et al., 1999). These
factors have significantly changed the job characteristics and opportunities for women
in rural areas.
The dramatic increase in the labor force participation of women with young
children over recent decades has made childcare an issue of considerable policy
importance. It is widely appreciated that the availability of affordable out-of-home
childcare options increases the likelihood that mothers will participate in the labor
force and it is therefore critical to gender equality in access to paid work and income
security. Further, access to high-quality care and education for preschool children is
imperative for early childhood development. Government support for and
involvement in child care are deemed essential to providing equitable access to
quality childcare and thereby modifying the effects of socioeconomic and gender-
related inequities because private markets for childcare tend to create cost barriers for
low-income families (Gornick and Meyers 2003).
A large body of research has emerged that investigates the interrelationship
between childcare and women’s labor market outcomes in developed market
economies. However, the literature on childcare in developing and transition countries
is relatively thin, and empirical studies of childcare and women’s work in China have
just begun to emerge. Kilburn and Datar (2002) estimate the impact of the availability
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of childcare centers using data from the CHNS for the period 1991 to 1997. Applying
difference-indifferences and bivariate probit regression techniques, they find that the
presence of childcare centers in a community has a positive effect on women’s labor
force participation and the use of childcare. Estimate the impact of childcare
availability and affordability on urban mothers’ labor force participation and labor
hour supply using CHNS for the period from 1991-2006. Du and Dong (2012) find
that an increase in daycare presence and a decrease in childcare costs increases
mothers’ labor force participation and the time spent on wage employment. Du (2008)
explores the relations between informal childcare arrangements and Chinese women’s
employment. She presents evidence that co-residence with grandparents or having
grandparents living nearby increases the labor force participation of women with
young children. Maurer-Fazio et al. (2011) find that the labor force participation rate
of urban women with preschool children fell dramatically between 1990 and 2000,
and co-residence with grandparents became increasingly important for women to stay
in the labor market.
The studies above indicate that grandparents are an important source of maternal
childcare substitutes for both urban and rural households. In the paper, we examine
how the childcare availability and affordability has affected the wage employment of
rural Chinese women. Compares the employment effects on mothers (younger
women) and grandmothers (women aged between 40 and 55), which are most likely
to coreside with young children (their grandchildren) and provide child care for young
married women. We find that presence of daycare in a village and a decrease in
daycare prices increase the probability and the time spent on wage employment for
older women, not mothers with preschool children.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The next section provides an
overview of economic reforms and childcare policy in China. Section 3 explains the
empirical methodology. Section 4 describes the data and variables. The empirical
results are presented in Section 5. The paper concludes with a summary of the
findings.
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2. Economic Transition and China’s Childcare Policy
In Mao’s era (1949-1976), more women participated in the labor market in China
than in any other country in the developing world (Croll 1983). Almost all working-
age women joined the labor force and worked on a fulltime basis in both urban and
rural China. Chinese women, especially urban women, could not have had such a high
level of labor force participation without a publicly funded childcare system. As early
as 1952, the Chinese government issued “Regulations for Kindergartens (trial basis),”
which called for governments at various levels and employers to develop nurseries
and kindergartens. The Regulations stipulated that the child care program had two
major goals: “to educate children so their health and cognitive capabilities will be
fully developed prior to primary school and to reduce the burdens of childcare on
mothers so they will have time to participate in political life, productive work, and
cultural and educational activities” (He and Jiang 2008, 4). Through this program,
resources were devoted to a publicly funded childcare system that provided care to
children from the earliest months of their lives until they entered primary school.
Compared to Central and Eastern European countries and to the Soviet Union, the
management and financing of the Chinese childcare system was more decentralized.
Childcare services in China were distributed through four mechanisms. First, the
Ministry of Education ran a small number of showcase nurseries and kindergartens.
Second, childcare was administered by the place of employment, the employer was
the principal provider of childcare to urban families . Third, neighborhood committees
(jiuweihui) were also involved in the provision of childcare to accommodate the needs
of those parents whose employers, such as urban collectives, had no childcare
programs. Fourth, in rural areas, the provision of childcare programs was primarily
the responsibility of communes and brigades. One major drawback of this
decentralized provisioning system was its inadequate role for redistribution. Although
the pre-reform childcare system permitted a broad-based distribution of services
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among urban families, it created a disparity between urban and rural sectors by
distributing benefits predominantly among privileged urban populations.
Structural change in the rural economy is associated with growth of wage earning
opportunities in the collectively owned township and village enterprises (TVEs) in the
1980s, The TVEs became an important source of wage employment in rural areas. In
1996, about 41 percent of total employment in TVEs was female, amounting to 54.4
million women (UNDP 1999); by 2001, the TVEs accounted for 18 percent of overall
national employment (ILO 2004). which continued to expand after they were
privatized in the 1990s (Xin Meng 1998; Xiao-Yuan Dong 1998). There are also
increases in self-employment (Sandeep Mohapatra, Rozelle and Rachael Goodhue
2007) and wage employment in the agricultural sector arising from the expansion of
large agri-businesses (Zhang, Qian Forrest and John A. Donaldson 2008). These
structural changes are associated with a dramatic increase in participation in the off-
farm sector which is estimated to have increased from 16 to 48 percent (between 1981
and 2000, although includes people living away from home (Linxiu Zhang, de Brauw,
and Rozelle (2004). Increased female participation is particularly pronounced for
women aged 16 to 20 years, whose participation in the off-farm sector increased from
13.1 to 75.6 percent between 1990 and 2000, compared to an increase from 8.8 to
33.7 per cent for women aged 26 to 30 years (Zhang et al 2004).
The privatization of township and village enterprises in the late1990s weakened the
local governments’ ability to finance public childcare programs. As a result, the
number of kindergartens and kindergarten enrolments fell in rural areas from 10,700
and 1.6 million, respectively, in 1995 to 5,000 and 0.9 million, respectively, in 2003.
In the face of this dramatic decrease in publicly-funded childcare programs, private
childcare centers have grown rapidly to fill in the gap since the mid-1990s. In recent
years, the privately funded children education has developed very fast in China, and
has assumed an ever-higher percentage in the whole children education. The
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proportion of privately funded kindergartens rose from 25.2% in 2000 to 57.8% in
2006, while their students accounted for 34.3% of all kindergarten students. In the
central and western regions, this proportion is much higher than the national average.
Particularly, for rural areas, this proportion is higher in the west and central China
than in the east. The rapid development of privately funded children education has
largely alleviated the crunch of public resources for children education and
popularized children education.
Despite increasing availability of daycare centers, In China, particularly rural
China, grandparents continue to serve as important alternative childcare providers.
Grandparents involvement in the care of their grandchildren is nearly a universal
phenomenon, grandchildren care is a valuable resource that older parents can provide
because of the scarcity and expenses of child care services in rural China (Secondi,
1997; Sun, 2002; Yang, 1996). The large scale labor force migration from rural to
urban China lead to increased reliance on grandparents providing child care
(Silverstein et al., 2006). Childcare by grandparents—with or without the parent present--may allow other family members, particularly mothers, to seek out more promising labor markets locations(e.g., wage work), or work more productively in family businesses and farms (Chen, Short, and Entwisle , 2000). This type of arrangement is consistent with other
studies of families in transitional economies (Chen, 2004; Hermalin, Roan and Perez,
1998; Korinek et al. 2006; Short et al. 2002).
In response to the rising socio-economic inequality associated with rapid economic
growth, the Chinese government re-oriented its development strategy from
maximizing GDP growth towards building a human-centered, harmonious society in
the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) and adopted a new inclusive growth agenda in
the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015). New policy initiatives that it will increase
government’s role in pre-school education and childcare for children aged under 3
years, by 2020, public childcare programs should account for about 50 percent of the
childcare programs, 70 to 85 percent of preschool children should enroll in three-year
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preschool programs, and great support from the central government for promoting
early childhood education in rural areas and less developed central and western
regions.
3. Empirical Methodology
Our empirical analysis seeks to address the question: if the childcare availability
and affordability has affected the wage employment of rural Chinese women.
Compares the employment effects on mothers (younger women) and grandmothers
(women aged between 40 and 55)
We assume that a Chinese mother makes the employment decision and childcare
choice jointly to maximize her utility over market goods, home-produced goods, and
leisure subject to a budget constraint and a time constraint. From the optimization
program, the mother’s two decisions can be derived as reduced form functions of the
prices of market-purchased and home-produced childcare, wages, and unearned
income. The mother’s labor supply increases with wages and decreases with the price
of each type of childcare and unearned income, whereas her demand for formal
childcare increases with wages, unearned income and the price of home-produced
childcare and decreases with the price of formal childcare.
The availability of affordable childcare programs, which is the primary interest of
investigation, is measured by the presence of daycare in a community, daycare prices,
and average wages of babysitters and nannies. As Kilburn and Datar (2002) point out,
the presence of daycare is potentially endogenous in that the presence of daycare in a
community may be driven by high demands for daycare services associated with high
labor force participation of women in the community. Regrettably, it is hard to find
suitable instruments that uniquely identify the availability of daycare in each
regression equation. To minimize the potential simultaneous bias we control for time
varying community characteristics, such as mean wages for female workers and labor
force participation rates in the agriculture activity of the village, as well as time-
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invariant characteristics by community dummy variables. Additionally, policy and
economic change across regions and over time are accounted for by province dummy
variables i interacted with time dummy variables. The covariates at individual and
household levels include the mother’s education and her age and its squared terms,
which are proxy variables for her wages; her husband’s education; unearned income;
and the household composition by sex and age, which is a proxy for the availability of
non-market maternal care substitutes and the domestic demand for the mother’s time
4. Data and Variables
Our empirical analysis uses data from the seven waves (1991, 1993, 1997, 2000,
2004, 2006 and 2009) of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS). The CHNS
covers nine Chinese provinces, namely, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Shandong, Henan,
Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, and Guangxi. A multistage, random cluster process
was used to draw the sample surveyed in each province. Counties in these provinces
were first stratified by income (low, middle and high), and then four of them were
randomly selected by a weighted sampling scheme. The provincial capital and one
lower income city are also included in the survey. Villages and townships within the
counties as well as urban and suburban neighborhoods within the cities were then
randomly chosen, and around 20 households were drawn from each community. Since
1997, new households in original communities have been added to replace households
no longer participating in the survey. Also since 1997, new communities in original
provinces have been added to replace sites no longer participating. Only eight
provinces participated in each wave of the survey before 2000, while all nine
provinces participated in 2000, 2004, 2006and 2009.In the latest wave, the survey
covers about 4,400 households and 19,000 individuals from more than 210
communities. Although the CHNS is not a nationally representative sample of China,
earlier studies have documented that the characteristics of the households and
individuals in the CHNS sample corresponds closely to national statistics (for
example, see Du, Lu, Zhai and Popkin 2002; Entwisle and Chen 2002).
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In this paper, omitting observations with missing information, we have a sample of
12,704 person/year observations for married women of prime age (between 18 and
55). We separated the sample respectively to young age women (between 18 and 35),
and old women (between 40 and 55), because the results of the group of young age
women are similar with the married women with children under 6 years old, we use
data on married women who are younger than 46 years and have a child under age 7
and husband present. The data on women’s labor force participation, employment,
earnings, education, age, husbands’ education, and family characteristics are obtained
from the CHNS’ household survey, and the data on daycare presence and costs and
other community characteristics are from the CHNS’ community survey. The
information on childcare arrangements is derived primarily from the section entitled
“Care of Children Ages 6 and Younger” of the household survey. In total, we obtain
3,176 woman /year observations that have information on mothers’ work and
childcare arrangements. Of the sample observations, 30 percent engaged in wage paid
work. For the empirical analysis, the variable for wage labor force participation is
defined as equal to 1 if a mother is currently working in wage employment and 0
otherwise. The number of wage hours is the number of hours spent on wage
employment in the last year.
The explanatory variables are defined as follows. Parents’ education is measured
by years of schooling. Unearned income is the sum of family’s non-labor income
measured as yuan per month. Household composition is measured by the numbers of
males and females at different age intervals. With respect to community
characteristics, the CHNS provides information on daycare programs for children
aged 0 to 2 and aged 3 to 6 in a community.
The prices of daycare programs are the mean prices of childcare centers for each of
the two age groups in a city or a county measured in yuan per month. The childcare
prices are derived at the city (or county) level instead of the community level because
some communities have no daycare programs. The price for non-center based care is
measured by the mean wages of babysitters and nannies in a community in yuan per
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day. Female wages are the mean wages of female workers in a community measured
in yuan per day. The percentage of the work force in agricultural activity and the work
force in enterprises that more than 20 people in a community are provided by
community survey. All monetary variables are discounted by the urban consumer
price index in 2009 provided by CHNS, and all are in log form. The summary
statistics of the explanatory variables are presented in the appendix.
5. Empirical Results
5.1 Mothers’ Childcare Arrangements and Paid Work
Table 1 presents childcare arrangements by mother’s wage work status. Informal
care refers to care provided by resident family members (primarily grandparents),
nonresident relatives, neighbors, and hired babysitters and nannies, whereas formal
childcare refers to center-based programs such as nurseries, kindergartens, and
preschools.
According to the survey, combined with other types child care, 89 percent wage
working mothers provided childcare, and 94 percent no-wage working mothers
provided childcare. Wage working mothers, on average, spent fewer hours on
childcare than did non-wage working mothers (23 versus 30 hours per week). An
appreciable proportion of fathers participated in childcare, and the probability of
paternal childcare is higher for wage working mothers than for non-wage working
mothers (69 percent versus 49 percent). There are 14 percent wage working mothers
provided childcare by themselves, for non-wage working mothers, the number is 33
percent.
There are three major types of non-parental child care. Among wage working
mothers, these include formal child care (23.2 percent), resident household members
that are primarily grandparents (26.6 percent), and non-resident relatives, neighbors
and hired baby-sitters (23.4 percent). Among non-wage working mothers, only 8.5
percent use formal childcare, 19.5 percent use the services of a resident household
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member, and 20.8 percent use the services of a non-resident relative or neighbor.
Non-wage working mothers use maternal care substitutes for reasons such as
agricultural activity or giving themselves the time to fulfill other domestic duties.
Table 2 presents the trends of daycare presence and childcare costs over the
period of investigation. In 1991, 15.7 percent of the sample communities had daycares
for children aged 0 to 2 years, 43.3 percent of the communities had daycares for
children aged 3 to 6 years. The proportion of the communities with daycare programs
for children aged 0 to 2 years rose steadily from 1991 to 1997, and fell slightly, from
21.9 percent in 1997 to 17.9 percent in 2004. The declining trends of daycare presence
appear to be reversed in 2006, and the proportion of the communities with daycares
for children aged 3 to 6 years rose steadily from 1991 to 2009, reflecting the growth
of private daycare programs. The proportion of women who lived in the communities
with daycares displays a similar pattern of change.
With respect to childcare costs, we note that between 1991 and 2009,
the mean prices of daycares for children aged 0 to 2 years in a city increased by12
percent per year and the mean prices of daycares for children aged 3 to 6 years
increased by 13 percent per year, whereas the mean wages for babysitters and nannies
in local communities grew at an annual rate of 16 percent.
Table 3 presents the trends of women’s labor force participation and labor hour
supply during the period from 1991 to 2009. We note that at the beginning of the
sample period, 17.3percent of women in the sample participated in paid work, and
women on average spent 380 hours per year for wage employment.
In line with the national trends of the privatization of township and village enterprises
in the late 1990s, women’s labor force participation declined over the period from
1993 to 2000, with their labor force participation rates falling by 4 percentage points
and yearly labor hour supply falling by more than 115 hours per year, and much of the
decrease occurred in 1997. And the decline in women’s labor force participation and
labor hour supply was less for those mother with children aged 0-6. The women’s
labor force participation and labor hour supply was sharply increased after 2000,
increased 50 percent points, to 64.4 percent in 2009, and yearly labor hour supply
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increased to 910.8 hours in 2009.
5.2 Determinants of Women’s Wage Labor Force Outcomes
We estimate three probit models of women aged 18-55, 40-55, and mothers with
child under 6 years, and tobit models of their labor hour supply and present the results
in Table 4.These regressions seek to address the question of whether the availability
of affordable childcare affects the mother’s labor force outcomes with the variables
for daycare presence as well as childcare costs.
The estimates show that the presence of daycare for children aged 3 to 6 years in a
community is positively associated with wage labor force participation (significant at
the 5 percent level), and the number of hours spent on wage employment (significant
at the 1 percent level) for both the group of women aged 18-55 and women aged 40-
55. Quantitatively, introducing a daycare to the community which did not have such
program would increase the women’s labor force participation by 5.2 percent, and her
time spent on wage employment by 50.3 hours per year. But the presence of daycare
for children aged 3 to 6 years has not effect on mothers’ wage labor force
participation. With respect to daycare costs, the mean prices of daycares for older
children are statistically significant for two regressions in the group of women aged
40-55 years.
We next take a look at the covariates. As we would expect, a women’s education
has a significant positive effect on her labor force participation, and hours spent on
wage employment, whereas her husband’s education has a significant positive effect
on her labor force participation and wage hours.
With respect to household demographics, we find that a woman’s wage labor force
participation and labor hour supply decreases with the domestic demand for her time
measured by the number of females and males aged between 0 and 6, and 7 and 14
years. The estimates also show that a mother’s labor force participation and labor hour
supply decreases with the number of females and males aged from 15 to 25, and
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females aged 26 to 39, which means a young woman or man’s presence decreases the
women’s wage labor supply.
Regarding the characteristics of local labor markets, we find that a woman’s wage
labor force participation and labor hour supply are higher in the communities with
higher female worker wage and percentage of the work force in enterprises more than
20 people, and they are lower in the communities with percentage of the work force in
agricultural activity.
6. Conclusion
China’s transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy has
substantially created many job opportunities for rural labor force.
The dramatic increase in the labor force participation of women with young
children over recent decades raised the concern about how childcare provision may
affect women’s labor market outcomes in rural area. In this paper, we provide an
overview of childcare in rural China and estimate the impacts of childcare availability
on women’s labor force outcomes.
Our analysis shows that the presence of daycare programs in a community is
positively associated with women’s labor force participation and labor hour supply,
but has not effect on mothers’ wage labor force participation. The presence of daycare
programs in a community increased the labor force participation and labor hour
supply of women aged 40-55 years indicates that the women can be released by the
child care from involvement in the care of their grandchildren. The analysis also
shows the costs of daycares are important determinants of the women’s wage
employment.
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TABLE 1CHILDCARE ARRANGEMENTS FOR MOTHERS WITH CHILDREN AGED 0-6, BY WORK STATUS
Non-parental childcare Parental childcare
Formal childcare
Informal childcare
Co-residentgrandparents
Non-residentrelatives/neighbors
Mother only Mother Fathe
r
Wage working mothers (observations =924)% using thistype of care
23.2 26.6 23.4 14.3 88.7 69.2
Mean hours ofcare per childper week
39.9 33.7 33.5 24.9 23.3 14.5
No-wage working mothers (observations =2252)
% using 8.5 19.5 20.8 33.7 93.7 39.8
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thistype of careMean hours ofcare per childper week
42.9 27.3 34.1 30.1 29.6 17.3
Source: CHNS
TABLE 2TRENDS OF DAYCARE PRESENCE AND CHILDCARE COSTS, 1991-2009Year 1991 1993 1997 2000 2004 2006 2009Proportion of communities having daycaresChildren aged 0-2 0.157 0.179 0.219 0.197 0.179 0.200 0.285Children aged 3-6 0.433 0.488 0.492 0.514 0.572 0.648 0.632No. communities 127 123 128 142 145 145 144Proportion of women aged 18-55years who lived in the community having daycaresChildren aged 0-2 0.162 0.188 0.217 0.183 0.199 0.202 0.277Children aged 3-6 0.444 0.499 0.5 0.524 0.617 0.666 0.653Childcare costsLog daycare price for age 0-2 (yuan/month) 2.881 3.539 3.984 4.389 4.633 4.705 5.091Log daycare price for age 3-6(yuan/month) 2.491 3.101 3.718 4.203 4.37 4.51 4.885Log wage for babysitter/nanny(yuan/day) 0.297 1.236 1.161 1.515 2.458 2.643 3.242No. women 1972 1885 1947 1900 1686 1669 1645Source: CHNS
TABLE 3TRENDS OF WOMENS’ LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION AND WORKING HOURS, 1991-2009Year 1991 1993 1997 2000 2004 2006 2009Proportion of wage working women(18-55years) 0.173 0.18 0.135 0.152 0.583 0.649 0.646(40-55years) 0.129 0.143 0.103 0.121 0.555 0.623 0.646(with child under 6 years) 0.140 0.146 0.139 0.171 0.606 0.726 0.628
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Number of hours spent on wage employment per year(18-55years) 380.418 375.336 265.031 296.67 852.811 939.636 910.882(40-55years) 288.994 282.89 195.461 237.869 774.17 866.091 880.036(with child under 6 years) 301.592 321.927 289.181 321.121 838.113 1147.144 836.309Source: CHNS
TABLE 4DETERMINANTS OF WOMEN’S LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION ANDWORK HOURS
18-55 years old women
40-55 years old women
Women with child under 6
Probit Tobit Probit Tobit Probit TobitWage employment
Wage hours/year
Wage employment
Wage hours/year
Wage employment
Wage hours/year
Community has daycare(0-2)
-0.015 -13.441 -0.059 -68.723 -0.035----
Community has daycare(3-6)
0.052**
50.333***
0.066**
59.491***
0.016
Log price ofdaycare for age 0-2
0.018 14.834 0.03026.423*
-0.035
Log price ofdaycare for age 3-6 -0.023 -15.020 -0.041*
-38.556*** 0.002
Log wage forbabysitter/nanny 0.019 19.410** 0.028 30.481** 0.016Age 0.049*** 43.133*** 0.047 80.036 0.111*Age squared -0.001*** -0.646*** -0.001 -1.015* -0.002*Years of schooling
0.014***
16.434***
0.012***
14.075*** 0.030***
Husband’s years ofschooling 0.003 4.845** 0.000 0.237 0.014**Log unearned
0.032***
30.409***
0.024***
20.919***
0.054***
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income(yuan/year)Log land
-0.009-57.084***
0.010 -44.665*** -0.016
Number of male age 0-6 -0.035**
-44.051***
-0.004 -29.152 -0.066
Number of female age 0-6
-0.046***
-56.847***
-0.002 -17.436 -0.062
Number of male age 7-14
-0.051***
-53.931*** -0.036* -37.398* -0.001
Number of female age 7-14
-0.035***
-41.728*** -0.045* -34.359* -0.028
Number of male age 15-25
-0.037***
-30.832*** -0.032** -20.289 -0.011
Number of female age 15-25
-0.046***
-49.583***
-0.056***
-55.180***
0.035
Number of male age 26-39 0.003 10.266 -0.051* -39.092 0.023Number of female age 26-39
-0.067***
-61.123***
-0.085**
-94.215***
-0.060
Number of male age 40-50
-0.024 -7.703 -0.040 -29.211 0.001
Number of female age 40-50
0.002 4.453 -0.024 -37.530 0.086
Number of male age 51-69
-0.010 2.096 -0.049 -43.913 -0.032
Number of female age 51-69
0.009 8.688 -0.007 -9.326 0.063
Number of male age 70
-0.025 -19.956 -0.017 -40.891 -0.139
Number of female age
-0.017 -26.510 -0.035 -51.714*
0.091
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70Log mean female wage
0.064***
66.585***
0.058**
52.778***
0.077**
percentage of the work force in farm
-0.001 -0.672**
-0.001 -0.928**
-0.002
percentage of the work forcein enterprises 0.001*
0.726***
0.000 0.320 0.000
Community fixedeffects
yes yes yes yes yes
Province x year
yes yes yes yes yes
Pseudo R2 0.392 ---- 0.408 0.070 0.499Observations
12704 12704 6293 6293 3176
Notes: The estimates of the probit model presented in the table are the marginal effects on the probability of labor force participation and the estimates of the tobit model are the marginal effects on the censored mean value of the dependent variable. Standard errors presented in parentheses are robust to heteroscedasticity and intra-community clustering. ***, **, and * denote significance levels of 1%, 5% and 10%, respectively. Source: CHNS.
APPENDIX 1CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN
18-55 years old women 40-55 years old women
Women with child under 6
Mean Std.Dev. Mean Std.Dev. Mean Std.Dev.Age 39.633 (8.777) 47.089 (4.321) 29.742 (4.731)Age squared 1647.793 (690.252) 2236.065 (409.498) 906.951 (296.168)Years of schooling 5.905 (3.827) 4.910 (3.945) 6.933 (3.346)Husband’s years ofschooling 7.739 (3.101) 7.176 (3.354) 8.275 (2.700)Log unearned income(yuan/year) 3.391 (3.777) 3.511 (3.831) 3.310 (3.691)
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Log land 1.211 (0.995) 1.220 (0.988) 1.234 (0.895)Number of male age 0-6 0.168 (0.398) 0.065 (0.264) 0.685 (0.574)Number of female age 0-6 0.141 (0.377) 0.056 (0.240) 0.611 (0.628)Number of male age 7-14 0.316 (0.542) 0.163 (0.407) 0.186 (0.423)Number of female age 7-14 0.290 (0.545) 0.154 (0.407) 0.305 (0.579)Number of male age 15-25 0.339 (0.583) 0.493 (0.660) 0.211 (0.477)Number of female age 15-25 0.354 (0.619) 0.470 (0.688) 0.319 (0.592)Number of male age 26-39 0.457 (0.520) 0.113 (0.327) 0.827 (0.447)Number of female age 26-39 0.475 (0.514) 0.062 (0.250) 0.776 (0.457)Number of male age 40-50 0.397 (0.490) 0.627 (0.485) 0.122 (0.328)Number of female age 40-50 0.408 (0.492) 0.762 (0.427) 0.117 (0.321)Number of male age 51-69 0.270 (0.447) 0.356 (0.481) 0.231 (0.424)Number of female age 51-69 0.235 (0.424) 0.258 (0.438) 0.264 (0.441)Number of male age 70 0.030 (0.174) 0.029 (0.171) 0.035 (0.186)Number of female age 70 0.055 (0.228) 0.063 (0.243) 0.045 (0.207)Log wage 1.701 (1.261) 1.873 (1.228) 1.373 (1.324)
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forbabysitter/nannyLog mean female wage 2.389 (0.937) 2.533 (0.897) 2.040 (1.016)percentage of the work force in farm 55.013 (30.152) 53.591 (30.195) 59.382 (29.195)percentage of the work forcein enterprises 20.769 (27.185) 21.394 (27.079) 19.039 (26.885)Observations
12704 ---- 6293 ---- 3176 ----
APPENDIX 2MULTINOMIAL LOGIT OF WOMEN’S MARKET EMPLOYMENT CHOICE
18-55 years old women 40-55 years old women
Women with child under 6
Multinomial logitFarmemployment
Wage employment
Farmemployment
Wage employment
Farmemployment
Wage employment
Community has daycare(0-2)
-0.095(0.134)
-0.115(0.120)
0.021(0.192)
-0.239(0.175)
-0.053(0.342)
-0.239(0.33)
Community has daycare(3-6)
0.080(0.112)
0.323(0.106) ***
0.101(0.174)
0.386(0.161) **
0.065(0.28)
0.037(0.298)
Log price ofdaycare for age 0-2
-0.027(0.084)
0.137(0.080) *
-0.097(0.127)
0.077(0.124)
0.323(0.202)
-0.078(0.208)
Log price of
-0.052(0.079)
-0.144(0.077) *
-0.023(0.123)
-0.192(0.122)
-0.102(0.179)
0.036(0.186)
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daycare for age 3-6Log wage forbabysitter/nanny
-0.070(0.056)
-0.008(0.059)
0.076(0.091)
0.139(0.097)
-0.353(0.128) ***
-0.310(0.143) **
Age 0.403(0.053) ***
0.522(0.049) ***
1.091(0.437) **
0.956(0.405) **
-0.042(0.208)
0.943(0.214) ***
Age squared -0.005
(0.001) ***-0.007(0.001) ***
-0.012(0.005) ***
-0.012(0.004) ***
0.002(0.003)
-0.013(0.003) ***
Years of schooling
-0.060(0.014) ***
0.036(0.013) ***
-0.037(0.019) *
0.046(0.018) **
-0.069(0.037) *
0.140(0.041) ***
Husband’s years ofschooling
-0.021(0.015)
0.026(0.014) ***
-0.049(0.021) **
-0.021(0.02)
-0.019(0.039)
0.073(0.042) *
Log unearned income(yuan/year)
0.291(0.013) ***
0.334(0.012) ***
0.269(0.018) ***
0.286(0.017) ***
0.357(0.031) ***
0.451(0.032) ***
Log land0.731(0.051) ***
0.324(0.051) ***
0.774(0.075) ***
0.499(0.074) ***
0.834(0.139) ***
0.482(0.153) ***
Number of male age 0-6
0.131(0.112)
-0.156(0.108) *
0.720(0.260) ***
0.278(0.247)
0.022(0.222)
-0.654(0.239) ***
Number of female age 0-6
-0.166(0.113)
-0.360(0.109) ***
-0.247(0.245)
-0.120(0.225)
-0.217(0.211)
-0.677***(0.232)
Number of male age 7-14
-0.052(0.092)
-0.160(0.089) *
0.287(0.177)
0.170(0.175) *
-0.231(0.249)
-0.542(0.263) **
Number of female age 7-14
-0.200(0.081) **
-0.234(0.080) ***
-0.299(0.154) *
-0.259(0.156)
0.094(0.198)
0.046(0.21)
Number of male age 15-25
-0.070(0.079)
-0.192(0.077) **
0.119(0.103)
-0.049(0.100) *
-1.070(0.252) ***
-1.038(0.273) ***
Number of female age 15-25
-0.071(0.072)
-0.170(0.072) **
-0.027(0.093)
-0.166(0.093)
0.120(0.224)
0.313(0.234)
Number of male age
-0.259(0.132) **
-0.036(0.121)
-0.566(0.212) ***
-0.315(0.200) *
-0.888(0.285)
-0.763(0.291) ***
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26-39 ***Number of female age 26-39
-0.122(0.142)
-0.360(0.131) ***
-0.104(0.247)
-0.608(0.234) ***
0.451(0.308)
-0.034(0.31)
Number of male age 40-50
-0.284(0.153) *
-0.113(0.141)
-0.281(0.329)
0.048(0.304)
-0.789(0.371) **
-0.743(0.388) *
Number of female age 40-50
-0.347(0.154) **
-0.171(0.142)
-0.839(0.522)
-0.742(0.447) *
0.061(0.363)
0.610(0.392) *
Number of male age 51-69
-0.300(0.146) **
-0.168(0.131)
-0.207(0.342)
-0.053(0.315)
-0.320(0.27)
-0.463(0.267) *
Number of female age 51-69
-0.339(0.145) **
-0.078(0.130)
-0.407(0.457)
-0.343(0.380)
-0.067(0.266)
0.400(0.268) *
Number of male age 70
0.071(0.211)
0.075(0.194)
0.792(0.389)
0.859(0.374) **
-0.224(0.442)
-0.635(0.414) *
Number of female age 70
-0.147(0.172)
-0.204(0.155)
0.073(0.247) **
-0.110(0.223)
-0.475(0.399)
0.010(0.395)
Log mean female wage
0.119(0.093)
0.227(0.095) **
0.146(0.144)
0.260(0.146) *
-0.499(0.221) **
-0.202(0.253)
percentage of the work force in farm
0.002(0.002)
0.000(0.002)
-0.001(0.003)
0.000(0.003)
0.010(0.005) *
0.008(0.005)
percentage of the work force in enterprises
-0.006(0.002) **
-0.001(0.002)
-0.003(0.003)
-0.001(0.003)
-0.003(0.005)
-0.005(0.004) *
Community fixed effects
yes yes yes yes yes yes
Province x year
yes yes yes yes yes yes
LR test (χ2)P value
10753.060.0
---- 6009.870.0
---- 3499.490.0
----
Pseudo R2 0.424 ---- 0.472 ---- 0.590 ----Observations
12704 ---- 6293 ---- 3176 ----
Notes: The estimates of the multinomial logit model are the marginal effects on the
25
log odds ratio. Standard errors presented in parentheses are robust to heteroscedasticity and intra-community clustering. ***, **, and * denote significance levels of 1%, 5% and 10%, respectively. The reference group includes those who live in a community with no participating in any work.Source: CHNS.
26