Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition

Guangye He Department of Sociology School of Social and Behavior Sciences Nanjing University, China

Center for Applied Social and Economic Research Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong SAR, China

Xiaogang Wu Center for Applied Social and Economic Research Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong SAR, China

University of Michigan Population Studies Center Research Report 16-875 December 2016

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, May 1-3rd, 2014, Boston, MA. Guangye He would like to thank the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) for a Hong Kong PhD Fellowship award, and a Post-doctoral Fellowship Matching Fund (PDF) from Office of Vice President for Research & Graduate Studies, HKUST; Xiaogang Wu would like to thank the RGC for financial support from the General Research Fund (GRF 646411 and 16600117). Direct correspondence to Guangye He ([email protected]) or Xiaogang Wu ([email protected]), Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, CHINA. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 2

ABSTRACT

This article examines gendered patterns of career mobility during urban China’s economic transition. As labor markets become increasingly competitive and women gradually lose the employment protection they used to enjoy under state socialism, work-family conflicts become more prominent in shaping women’s career trajectories and their labor market outcomes. Based on the analysis of the retrospective life history data from the Chinese General Social Survey conducted in 2008, we show that Chinese women in the workforce are more adversely affected by marriage and dependent children than their male counterparts; they are more likely to withdraw from the labor market to fulfill their roles as wives and mothers and are less likely to move up in the career ladder. This pattern is more salient in the late reform stage (1999-2008) than before. These findings bear important implications for formulating effective social policies to promote gender equality in contemporary China. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 3

INTRODUCTION Women typically take a greater share of responsibility for household duties than men, and transitions to marriage and parenthood tend to enhance the traditional gender division of labor (i.e., Bianchi, Milkie, Sayer, & Robinson, 2000; Gupta, 1999). As married women spend more time and effort on housework and childcare, they have less time available for career development. Therefore, women are less likely to be re-employed after taking maternity leave and more likely to withdraw from the labor market, and such career interruptions also limit their promotion chances and earnings attainment (Becker, 1991). Numerous studies have demonstrated a substantial penalty for women associated with getting married and giving birth (e.g., Budig & England, 2001; Cheng, 2015; Glauber, 2007; Hochschild, 1989; Looze, 2014; Miller, 2011; Yu & Xie, 2014). Most of these studies, however, are based on the evidence from Western societies. As gender disparities are largely contingent upon the historical and institutional circumstance of different countries, it is unclear whether gender inequality in non-Western societies follows the same pattern as that in the West (Cotter, Hermsen, & Vanneman, 1999). Although women’s reproductive role (e.g., marriage and childbirth) may be universal, its hindering effects on their productive work in labor markets could vary across societies with different gender ideology, which is rooted deeply in historical and cultural traditions and social welfare systems. The work- family tension for married women may thus be more prominent in a society with a stronger patriarchal culture. Various social policies adopted by the welfare state could ease such tension and thus are conducive to gender egalitarianism in the society (e.g., Orloff, 1993). Notwithstanding the entrenchment of gender roles in families, the impact of marriage and childbirth on women’s career mobility may also change amid rapid socioeconomic transformation and fundamental shifts in welfare regimes. As far as we know, few empirical studies on women’s career mobility and its link to their reproductive roles have been situated in such a broad context of social change. The massive socioeconomic changes in China over the past four decades provide a unique chance for scholars to examine how the institutional transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy can re-shape gender stratification, and in particular, affect women’s career mobility as they get married and have children. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 4

Based on the retrospective life history data from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) conducted in 2008, we empirically investigate the role of marriage and parenthood in affecting job mobility and how the effects differ between men and women amid dramatic institutional transformation in urban China. Employing event history analyses, we demonstrate the divergent patterns of career mobility between men and women and how they are associated with important life events such as marriage and childbirth, leading to cumulative advantages/disadvantages in socioeconomic outcomes over the life course.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Work, Family and Women’s Socioeconomic Disadvantages

Gender inequalities in education, employment and earnings in Western societies have been well documented in the sociological and economic literature. In general, scholars have found that gender inequality has declined over time, and the temporal change is closely associated with other secular trends such as economic development and educational expansion (Reskin 1993). Economic development may boost the demand for a highly educated labor force and facilitate educational expansion. Comparative studies of educational stratification show that educational expansion tends to favor women (Hout & Diprete, 2006; Shavit & Blossfeld, 1993). Notwithstanding these changes, the gender earnings gap persists in most developed countries. Economists and sociologists have attempted to explain the sources of gender earnings disparities. An earlier argument was that women were socioeconomically disadvantaged relative to men because they lacked human capital, such as education, skills, and work experience (Becker, 1991). After taking into account these individual characteristics pertaining to productivity, the unexplained part of the earnings gap was simply assumed to be resulted from the discrimination against women. Another argument highlights the important role of occupational gender segregation in explaining earnings disparities between men and women (Jacobs, 1989; Marani, 1989; Treiman & Hartmann, 1981). Scholars have shown that gender earnings disparities in Western societies are largely associated with differential distribution of occupations between men and women (Peterson & Morgan, 1995; Treiman & Hartmann, 1981).

Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 5

Given the fact that women have reached parity with or even exceeded men in educational attainment in the developed world, the human capital theory has been largely discredited as an explanation for either unequal pay for equal work or unequal access to rewarding jobs (Reskin, 1993). It is the persistence of occupational gender segregation that requires further explanations. Many scholars have pointed to the gender differences in family roles and their interactions with individual careers (O’Neill, 2003). Indeed, the early stage of career trajectories for men and women evolve independently to a large extent. For those who have just completed their formal education and started their first jobs, there are little gender differences in career aspirations and occupational attainments. Empirical evidence also shows a fairly small gender wage gap at the time of labor market entry (e.g., Loprest, 1992; Manning & Swaffield, 2008). It is upon marriage, especially after childbirth, that women’s career trajectories diverge from men’s, presumably interrupting their careers (Jacobs and Gerson 2004). Therefore, over their life course, women have less incentive than men to invest on human capital, and they indeed accumulate less on average. They are more likely to leave the workforce or to leave sooner than men upon marriage and having children (Jacobs and Gerson 2004). Among those who work, women are more likely to choose jobs that are more flexible to accommodate their family responsibilities (Polacheck & Siebert, 1993; O’Neill, 2003). Such a life course perspective in social stratification provides a compelling account of how life events are intertwined to differentially shape patterns of career mobility for men and women (Jacobs and Gerson 2004). Over the life course, an individual experiences a series of role transitions. Transitions to marriage and parenthood tend to deepen the traditional division of labor between men and women (Bianchi et al., 2000; Gupta, 1999; Sanchez & Thomson, 1997). As household work falls disproportionately on the shoulders of women, and subsequent childcare further intensifies such disparities, tension emerges between family and work. This work-family tension reflects the conflicting roles of women as both caregivers and wage earners (Bianchi & Milkie, 2010; Jacobs & Gerson, 2004). Numerous empirical studies have found that marriage has a negative impact on working women but a positive impact on working men (Korenman & Neumark, 1992; Treiman & Terrel, 1975). The same goes for the presence of under-age children (Budig & England, 2001; Duncan, Featherman, & Duncan, 1972; Hoffman 2009; Korenman & Neumark, 1992; Percheski, 2008). Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 6

However, as Killewald and Gough (2013) argue, getting married or having children does not necessarily hurt women, and the effect of marriage and motherhood may vary across groups. Marriage and motherhood penalties are largest among less educated and low-wage women (Amuedo-Dorantes & Kimmel, 2005; Anderson, Binder, & Krause, 2003; Budig & Hodges, 2010; Taniguchi, 1999). Thus more education should mitigate or reduce the penalties of marriage and motherhood for women and help women acquire better jobs with more job-related benefits (Alon & Tienda, 2005). Nevertheless, women’s rising level of education may not necessarily be associated with shrinking gender gaps. It is also likely that education enhances women’s market skills rather than revolutionizes their entrenched gender role in the institutions of families and marriage. As such, family responsibilities have been, and continue to be, a primary factor not only for women themselves when considering a job offer but also for their employers when making employment and remuneration decisions. Women’s disadvantages in labor market persist in almost all countries of which the data are available, even if they have reached parity to men in educational attainment (Hausmann, Tysonm, & Zahidi, 2009). Such a paradox is often attributable to women’s role in family and marriage. Beyond the individual family level, the extent to which the family status of women affects gender earnings gaps may also depend on the state welfare system (Corcoran et al., 2000; Esping-Anderson, 1990, 1999; Orloff, 1996; Van der Lippe & Van Dijk, 2002). Under this system, women’s access to paid work, the capacity to power (career advancement to higher-level positions) and the capacity to form and maintain autonomous households are three important dimensions that could exert enormous influences on gender disparities in the labor market (Orloff, 1993). Research has shown that gender earnings gaps vary with the availability of employment in public sectors, paid parental leave, childcare facilities, as well as the tax system which may encourage or discourage women’s work (DiPrete & McManus, 2000; Gornick & Jacobs, 1998; Van der Lippe & Van Dijk, 2002). While the perspective of the conflicting relationship between women’s domestic and market roles can help explain the impact of family status on their career attainment, most studies tend to focus on a single country, typically, a developed one where the institutional links between family and work are relatively stable over time. Cross-country comparative studies, on the other hand, Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 7

have revealed how the family role of women in affecting their career attainment varies by welfare regime and social policy, but have neglected how women’s marriage and childbirth interact with their career development over the life course, leading to their disadvantages in labor market attainment. This study focuses on a single country, China, which has been undergoing dramatic institutional transitions over the past decades. On one hand, China has a long patriarchal tradition of Confucianism and decades of gender egalitarianism under state socialism. On the other hand, while the concept of welfare state was developed and framed primarily within advanced Western countries, some scholars argue that the work unit system under socialism can be understood as a kind of welfare state, which mediates the tension between work and family, especially for working women. Hence, China’s transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy has generated a unique setting for scholars to examine how change in welfare regimes affects the association between women’s family status and their career mobility and socioeconomic attainment.

Social Change and Women’s Career Mobility in China: Research Hypotheses

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the socialist state has played a strong role in promoting gender egalitarianism (Whyte & Parish, 1984). Women are encouraged to participate in the labor force, and more than 90 percent of married women were engaged in paid work throughout the Maoist period (Wolf 1985; Zuo & Bian, 2001). Owing to centralized planning, the government was able to implement various social policies aimed at achieving “equal pay for equal work” and strictly prohibited discrimination against women. The urban work unit (danwei) system, which offered them job security and equal pay, to some extent had alleviated the double responsibilities Chinese women shouldered. Hence, gender earnings inequality in state socialist China was mainly attributed to women’s lower education and skills relative to men’s. The transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy had a profound impact on Chinese women. Despite the fact that women have been catching up with men in educational attainment since the late 1980s (Wu & Zhang, 2010), women’s labor force Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 8

participation rates have dropped faster than men (Wu & Zhou, 2015), and their earnings relative to men’s have concomitantly declined (Zhang et al., 2005). Such a paradoxical trend we have observed is situated specifically in the social context of China’s economic restructuring, which we term “converging divergence.” One prominent factor that scholars often mention in explaining women’s exacerbating disadvantage in the labor market is the conflict between their housework and careers, a conflict that is increasingly shaping their career trajectories and labor market outcomes (Zuo & Bian, 2001). Women, especially those with children, are likely to spend more time on household chores (Zhang, Hannum, & Wang, 2008), and are also more likely to opt out of paid labor (Maurer-Fazio, Chen, & Tang, 2011). Having children has a negative effect on women’s wages, and this effect tends to be intensified as the number of children increases (Yu & Xie, 2014). By comparing the wage growth trajectories of men and women, Zhang and Hannum (2015) revealed that single women have similar wage growth patterns to men, whereas women with children earn lower wages. Having children further intensifies the traditional gender division of labor, making fathers spend more time working and less time with family, thus may further enhance men’s chances to develop career (for an analysis of China, see Mu & Xie, 2014). In this article, we further argue that the divergence may be due to the difference in career mobility and propose the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1a: Marriage has a negative impact on the likelihood of upward job mobility for women but not for men. Hypothesis 1b: Women are more likely than men to leave the labor market after getting married.

Gendered division of labor intensifies when a child is born. It is especially true in countries where the idea of a male breadwinner is more generally accepted (Budig, Misra, & Boeckmann, 2012), as it is in China. As the effects of having dependent children are similar to the effects of marriage on the outcomes concerned, the following hypothesis is testable:

Hypothesis 2a: Having dependent children reduces one’s likelihood of upward job mobility, particularly for married women. Hypothesis 2b: Having dependent children increases one’s likelihood of withdrawing from the labor force, particularly for married women. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 9

The argument underlying these hypotheses is that women’s conflicting roles between family and career put them at a disadvantage in the labor market. With the retreat of the socialist state in economic spheres and the prevalence of liberalism over the past decades, China provides an opposite example of how economic marketization would increase the tension between family and work and render them more disadvantages in labor markets in the new era. Hence, the following hypotheses are testable:

Hypothesis 3a: The negative effects of marriage on women’s upward job mobility and labor force participation are more prominent in the late reform period than before. Hypothesis 3b: The negative effects of having dependent children on women’s upward job mobility and labor force participation are more prominent in the late reform period than before.

In the rest part of the article, we test these hypotheses with the retrospective data from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) conducted in 2008.

DATA, VARIABLES AND MEASURES, AND METHODS Data The CGSS is a national representative survey conducted annually since 2003. It targets individuals aged 18 and older, and collects comprehensive information about family composition, marriage, social networks, and health. Our analysis is based on CGSS 2008, the total sample size is 6,000, and the response rate is 54.32 percent (Bian & Li, 2012). Detailed retrospective life histories were recorded in 2008, making the data ideal for this research. This article is interested primarily in gender differences in job mobility patterns. Since occupations are more clearly defined and recorded in urban area, we restrict the sample to urban population (N=3,982) who had the record of life history. After deleting those who have never worked or have no working record, there are 2,278 individuals in our analytical sample. To estimate gender disparity on the likelihood of experiencing different types of job mobility (e.g. getting promotion, being laid off, etc.), we reconstruct the life history of each individual based on their retrospective information. To reveal the dynamic relationship between marriage, childbirth, and job change, we employ event history analysis models with repeated events. Everyone is likely to switch jobs more than once, and job mobility serves as an important Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 10

mechanism for individuals to accumulate (dis)advantages in labor markets over the life course. We restructure the data to person-year records for the event history analysis. The risk set is those who have ever started the first job. The records are censored once an individual exited from the labor market because of layoff or taking care of the family, or job change. For those have not experienced either the employment exit or promotion/demotion at the time of the survey, the record remains until the end of the time spell or when an individual reached 50 years old, because marriage and childbirth occur at the certain stage of life. In the end, we obtain 35,330 person-year records for the analysis.

Variables and Measures

There are two dependent variables in this study. The first dependent variable is whether one has experienced upward mobility, and the second dependent variable is whether one has exited the labor market altogether. We define upward mobility based on job characteristics such as a rise up the professional ranks, a rise up the administrative ranks, or an increase in the International Socioeconomic Index (ISEI) of jobs. A labor market exit was recorded if an individual reported having had a job before but was no longer in the labor market at the time of survey. Thus, a respondent may experience upward mobility several times, but could only leave the labor market once. Both dependent variables are coded as dummies. The two key independent variables are “marital status,” which is coded as a dummy variable (1=married and 0 otherwise), and “childbirth” (1=yes). Both are time-variant variables. Party membership, also a time-variant variable, is coded as a dummy (yes=1). Other predictors include education level, coded as a set of dummy variables, and region dummies (1=east, 2=middle, and 3=west). Work unit sector is also coded as a binary dummy variable (1=state sector; 0=otherwise). Considering the impact of economic reform on an individual’s life course, we code the years in which individuals switched jobs into three stages: 1=1978-1992, 2=1993- 1998, and 3=1999-2008. Stage 1 (1978-1992) is the initial period when the market sector gradually emerged but still accounted for a negligible portion of China’s economy. In Stage 2 (1993-1998), the pace of marketization accelerated following then the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's southern China tour in 1992 to call for further reform. During this stage the private sector grew rapidly and its importance in the national economy increased dramatically. In Stage Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 11

3 (1999-2008), state-owned enterprises underwent drastic restructuring to increase efficiency. Some of them were privatized, especially earlier in this stage, while others competed more like private firms than they did before in the market. For the second stage of analysis, the frequency of experiencing upward mobility is calculated for each individual.

Methods

To model the likelihood of experiencing different types of job mobility, we employ discrete-time event history models. As an individual may experience upward mobility several times, upward mobility is set up as a repeated event. The discrete-time logit models for event history analysis require the restructuring of survey data to personal-years (for details, please refer to Allison [2010]). The risk set includes individuals who have held a job before. The clock starts at individual’s first job and ends if an individual leaves the labor force because of a layoff, or he or she needs to take care of the family. If individual has no status change until age 50, the rest of person years would be right censored. Considering that getting married and having children are life-course events, which generally take place at certain stages in life, we eliminate all individuals aged 50 or older to rule out the confounding effect of age. The pattern of job mobility is affected by factors at two levels: at the societal level, structural changes exert a massive influence on the individual’s job mobility as a whole, and this influence differs for men and women; at the individual level, family-related events such as getting married and having children exert additional pressure on women to fulfill their traditional roles as wives and mothers. To examine the varying impact of family-related events in response to rapid societal changes, our analysis focuses on men and women who held a job at the time of survey or who have had one before and employs the discrete-time event history model with repeated events to evaluate the changing effect of marriage and parenthood. We conduct the analyses for male and female subsamples separately. To check the statistical differences in each variable between the two groups, we run a regression on the full sample, with each of the variables interacting with the dummy variable (i.e., female). Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 12

EMPIRICAL RESULTS Descriptive Statistics To intuitively demonstrate the divergent career paths of men and women, we first plot the kernel density graphs in Figure 1, based on occupations’ international socio-economic index (ISEI) of an individual’s first job and current (or last) job. While the gender gap is negligible for the first job, women are clearly lagging behind in occupational status attainment when it comes to the current (or last) job. Despite the time-varying pattern, it is unknown whether family-related events exert any influence on one’s occupational attainment, which we aim to investigate below.

Figure 1. Kernel Density of Gender Differences in ISEI of First Job and Current/Last Job, Urban China .04 .04

p=0.419 p=0.000 .03 .03 .02 .02 Kernel Density .01 .01 0 0

20 40 60 80 100 20 40 60 80 100 ISEI of 1st Job ISEI of Current/Last Job

Female Male Female Male

Data source: Chinese General Social Survey, 2008 Note: Only individuals age 18 or above (excluding students) residing in urban areas are included.

To further demonstrate the differential effects of marriage on men and women, we plot the non-parametric smoothed hazard function for upward job mobility and labor market exit in Figure 2. In each graph, the dashed line represents individuals who are not married, while the solid line refers to those who are married. We can see that, married women are less likely than unmarried women to experience upward career mobility and more likely to withdraw from the labor market. The effect is statistically significant, using log-rank and the Wilcoxon test. For men, the effect of marriage is Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 13

much smaller. Marriage has no significant impact on their likelihood of withdrawing from the labor force. Similar to women, married men are also less likely to experience upward mobility. This finding seems to contradict the wage premium of fatherhood previously reported (e.g., Killewald, 2013; Loh, 1996; Lundberg & Rose, 2000). A plausible explanation is that, lower rates of upward mobility indicate a longer duration between promotions, and promotion rates are generally higher earlier in one’s career but lower after marriage. As for labor market exit, the effect of marriage is statistically insignificant for men.

Figure 2. Smoothed Hazard and Survival Function of Job Change by Gender

Note: The log-rank test weighs all time points equally, while the Wilcoxon test gives higher weights to earlier time points.

Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for the selected variables for individual-level records in Panel A and person-year records in Panel B. Men account for 49.52 percent and women 50.48 percent of the sample. We can also see significant gender differences in the type of mobility based on both individual and person-year records. For instance, 29.96 percent of men and 24.96 percent of women have ever experienced upward mobility, whereas 27.39 percent of men and 41.13 percent of women have left the labor market. Clearly, women are less likely than men to experience upward mobility but more likely to leave the labor market. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 14

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics for Selected Variables (Person-Year), CGSS 2008

Full Male Female Diff. p-Value Sample Panel A: Individuals Ever Upward 27.44 29.96 24.96 - 0.007 Ever Exit 34.33 27.39 41.13 + 0.000 Married 80.38 79.17 81.57 - 0.150 Have Children 76.08 74.20 77.91 + 0.038 Education <=Primary 7.86 5.94 9.74 + 0.001 Junior High 27.92 25.80 30.00 + 0.025 Senior High 36.35 37.23 35.48 - 0.384 >=College 27.88 31.03 24.78 - 0.001 Party Member 13.61 19.68 7.65 - 0.000 Full-time 96.49 96.01 96.96 + 0.220 Employed State Sector 54.26 55.67 52.87 - 0.179 N 2,278 1,128 1,150 Panel B: Person-year Job Mobility Rate % Upward 2.35 2.72 1.94 - 0.000 Exit 2.65 1.99 3.36 + 0.000

Reform stage 1978-1991 41.99 40.42 43.69 + 0.000 1993-2001 25.44 25.53 25.35 - 0.700 2002-2008 32.57 34.05 30.96 - 0.000 Time Variant Variable Age 31.76 31.91 31.59 + 0.000 -8.47 -8.45 -8.5 Duration 12.71 13.01 12.37 + 0.000 -8.58 -8.66 -8.48 Married 72.73 70.55 75.09 + 0.000 Have Dependent 9.59 9.27 9.95 + 0.001 Children Party member 12.09 16.77 7.01 - 0.000 State sector 81.52 80.89 82.18 + 0.002 Person-year 35,330 18,401 16,929

Note: The results are tabulated in person-year. The numbers in the parentheses are standard deviation. “Diff” refers to female-male differences. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 15

In our sample, more than 80 percent of respondents are married. Women generally got

married earlier than men (on average 25.65 years old for men and 24.05 years old for women).

Subsequently, women become parents at an earlier age as well. They become mothers for the

first time at an average age of 25.18, whereas men become fathers at 26.78. In addition, there is a

slight gender difference in education. Similar results can be found in Panel B, where we can also

see that women hold jobs for a shorter period of time than men.

Results from Event History Analysis

As shown in Figure 1, there is little gender difference in the first job attainment. Men’s and

women’s career development only begins to diverge later.

The Effect of Marriage

Table 2 presents the results of discrete-time event history analysis on the effect of marriage on

the likelihood of upward job mobility. The left two columns are baseline models for men and

women. The p-value for this two-group comparison is derived from the full models with each of

the independent variables interacting with female (dummy variable). The baseline model shows

that marriage has a negative impact on the likelihood of upward job mobility for both men and

women, holding constant all other characteristics, while education increases their likelihood of

upward mobility. Party membership is also crucial in determining respondents’ upward mobility.

After taking account the varying impacts of marriage across reform stages, results show that, in

the early reform period, marriage had no significant effect on one’s likelihood of upward

mobility. However, the effect grew stronger over time, especially in the late reform period

(1999-2008). Relative to the early reform period, marriage reduced the likelihood of upward

mobility by 81.5 percent (=1-exp-1.690) for women and by 50 percent for men, net of the other

factors. The significant gender difference suggests that marriage penalizes women’s career

advancement more than men’s. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 16

Table 2. Discrete-Time Logit Model Estimating the Effect of Marriage on Job Upward Mobility, CGSS 2008

Upward Mobility VARIABLE Female Male p-value Female Male p-value

Married -0.922*** -0.533** 0.184 -0.152 -0.232 0.831 (0.235) (0.175) (0.306) (0.218) Reform stage(ref.=1978- 1991) 1993-1998 -0.005 -0.356* 0.186 0.312 -0.063 0.427 (0.209) (0.163) (0.396) (0.258) 1999-2008 0.091 -0.642*** 0.011 1.027** -0.151 0.003 (0.239) (0.162) (0.324) (0.234) Interaction Married*1993-1998 -0.514 -0.444 0.898 (0.442) (0.321) Married*1999-2008 -1.690*** -0.713* 0.037 (0.363) (0.296)

Individual Yes Yes Yes Yes Characteristics Job Duration Yes Yes Yes Yes Regional Dummies Yes Yes Yes Yes

Constant -4.516*** -4.556*** -5.101*** -4.817*** (0.482) (0.529) (0.498) (0.550)

Observations 16,083 17,445 16,083 17,445 Log-Likelihood -890.8 -1387 -878.9 -1384 Chi2 163.2 164.8 211.6 173.1 Note: Robust standard errors in parentheses. Individual characteristics include educational attainment (time- invariant), party membership and work sector (time-variant). Regional dummies include two dummy variables, eastern and western regions, with middle region as a reference. For ease of estimation, job duration is treated as a continuous variable. In consideration of its nonlinear form, a square term is added. † p<0.1; * p<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p<0.001.

In the baseline model of Table 3, we can see that married women are more likely than unmarried women to withdraw from the labor force. We then included interaction terms between the reform stage and marriage. Results show that in the early reform era, thanks to the permanent employment system, both women and men were less likely to leave the labor market, irrespective of marital status. In the later reform stage, due to the gradual retreat of state protection and dismantling of the work unit system, married women were more likely to leave the labor force, even after controlling for other characteristics. For married men, however, the impact was small. These findings lend support to Hypotheses 1a and 1b, namely, marriage has a negative impact on upward mobility for women and a positive impact on Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 17

women’s likelihood leaving the labor market. Such effects are more prominent in the later period (1999- 2008) than before (Hypothesis 3). For men, marriage does not seem to have a significant effect on labor market exit across the reform stages.

Table 3. Discrete-time Logit Model Estimating the Effect of Marital Status on Job Exit, CGSS 2008

Job Exit VARIABLE Female Male p-value Female Male p-value

Married 0.291+ -0.078 0.070 -0.195 0.0645 0.176 (0.159) (0.168) (0.245) (0.286) Reform Stage (ref.=1978-1991) 1993-1998 1.211*** 1.042*** 0.220 0.677* 1.091*** 0.212 (0.135) (0.160) (0.267) (0.265) 1999-2008 1.615*** 1.436*** 0.332 1.183*** 1.612*** 0.121 (0.143) (0.167) (0.241) (0.259) Interaction Married*1993-1998 0.719* -0.0852 0.114 (0.309) (0.334) Married*1999-2008 0.593* -0.263 0.026 (0.279) (0.314)

Individual Characteristics Yes Yes Yes Yes Job Duration Yes Yes Yes Yes Regional Dummy Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Observations 16,083 17,445 16,083 17,445 Log-Likelihood -2143 -1530 -2140 -1530 Chi2 420.6 265.2 424.8 268.8 Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Individual characteristics include educational attainment (time- invariant), party membership and work sector (time-variant). Regional dummies include eastern and western regions, with middle region as a reference. For ease of estimation, job duration is treated as a continuous variable. In consideration of its nonlinear form, a square term is added. † p<0.1; * p<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p<0.001.

Younger women who have never married are more likely to experience upward mobility, owing to their higher educational attainments. Marriage reduces women’s likelihood of upward mobility and these negative effects increase over time (reform stages). In contrast, for men, married and never married person years do not differ much in the likelihood of upward mobility. While massive layoffs resulted from the restructuring of state-owned enterprises affected both men and women, marriage had differential effects on their likelihood of leaving the workforce. Women were more likely to experience exit from the labor market upon marriage, whereas men were not. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 18

The Effect of Having Dependent Children

Presence of dependent children is another important factor that could affect one’s chance of career advancement. We restrict the analytical sample to married person-years since out-of- wedlock birth is still rare in China. Table 4 presents estimated results from logistic regression models. Controlling for all other factors, men are more likely to experience upward mobility, even if they have dependent children. While the effect was not significant for women in the baseline model, the negative effect of having dependent children on their career advancement is statistically significant. Women who have dependent children are 74.2 percent (=1-exp-1.353) less likely to experience upward job mobility in the later reform stage than in the early reform stage.

Table 4. Discrete-time Logit Model Estimating Effect of Having Children on Upward Job Mobility, CGSS 2008

Upward VARIABLE Female Male p-value Female Male p-value

Having Children 0.205 0.454* 0.042 0.381 0.404+ 0.951 (0.231) (0.181) (0.291) (0.231) Reform Stage (ref.=1978-1991) 1993-1998 -0.128 -0.418** 0.303 -0.127 -0.391* 0.361 (0.207) (0.159) (0.228) (0.177) 1999-2008 -0.514* -0.726*** 0.308 -0.382 -0.781*** 0.183 (0.222) (0.173) (0.235) (0.187) Interaction Having Children*1993-1998 0.0779 -0.225 0.648 (0.509) (0.425) Having Children*1999-2008 -1.353† 0.34 0.049 (0.781) (0.372)

Individual Characteristics Yes Yes Yes Yes Couple Characteristics Yes Yes Yes Yes Duration Yes Yes Yes Yes Regional Dummy Yes Yes Yes Yes

Observations 11,359 12,064 11,359 12,064 Log-Likelihood -825.4 -1289 -823.1 -1288 Chi2 40.67 114.7 48.44 118.1 Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Individual characteristics include educational attainment time- invariant, party membership and work sector (time-variant). Couple characteristics include relative educational level between husband and wife. Regional dummies include eastern and western regions, with middle region as a reference. For ease of estimation, job duration is treated as a continuous variable. In consideration of its nonlinear form, a square term is added. † p<0.1; * p<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p<0.001. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 19

Similarly, results in Table 5 show that married women are more likely to leave the labor market if they have dependent children, especially in the late reform stage. Women who have children are 2.8 (=exp1.022) times more likely to leave the labor market in the late reform stage than in the early reform stage. On the contrary, having dependent children seems to reduce men’s likelihood of leaving the workforce, though the effect is statistically insignificant.

Table 5. Discrete-time Logit Model Estimating Effect of Having Dependent Children on Labor Market Exit, CGSS 2008

Job Exit VARIABLE Female Male p-value Female Male p-value

Having Children 0.632*** 0.191 0.094 -0.0557 0.259 0.553 (0.162) (0.208) (0.371) (0.379) Reform Stage (ref.=1978-1991) 1993-1998 1.444*** 1.067*** 0.169 1.301*** 0.998*** 0.310 (0.175) (0.212) (0.186) (0.233) 1999-2008 1.810*** 1.480*** 0.250 1.612*** 1.543*** 0.821 (0.189) (0.216) (0.197) (0.234) Interaction Having Children*1993-1998 0.624 0.416 0.752 (0.448) (0.479) Having Children*1999-2008 1.022* -0.614 0.018 (0.431) (0.538)

Individual Characteristics Yes Yes Yes Yes Relative Education Yes Yes Yes Yes Duration Yes Yes Yes Yes Regional Dummy Yes Yes Yes Yes

Observations 11,359 12,064 11,359 12,064 Log-Likelihood -1519 -1011 -1515 -1008 Chi2 313.4 175.6 328.7 181.5 Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Individual characteristics include educational attainment (time- invariant), party membership and work sector (time-variant). Couple characteristics include relative educational level between husband and wife (Husband>Wife, Husband=Wife, Husband

The results above are consistent with Hypotheses 2a, 2b and 3b, namely, having dependent children negatively affects women’s chance of upward mobility and increases their likelihood of leaving the labor force, and these effects became stronger in the late reform stage than before as marketization proceeds. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 20

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

Although the education gender gap has narrowed in China following the economic reform, the gender gaps in employment rate and earnings have in fact widened. Our study explores the factors behind such a trend of what we call “converging divergence”, paying particular attention to Chinese women’s roles in marriage and family. Based on the life history data from the CGSS 2008, we examined how individuals’ job mobility changed upon marriage and parenthood, and how these effects varied with the pace of economic marketization in urban China. Discrete-time event history analyses reveal that both marriage and parenthood are important factors in predicting individuals’ likelihood of upward mobility and likelihood of leaving the labor market, especially for women, and their effects vary across different stages of economic reform. More specifically, we found that working women are more adversely affected by marriage and having dependent children than working men. They are more likely to withdraw from the labor market to fulfill their roles as wives and mothers, and are less likely to experience upward mobility. This pattern is more prominent in the late reform stage (1999-2008) than before. While young women were more likely to experience upward mobility in the later stages of the economic reform, men, regardless of their marital status, exhibited almost parallel patterns of upward mobility across the reform stages. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the socialist state had long advocated gender egalitarianism and women’s participation in economic production, which necessarily created the tension between their reproductive roles in family and marriage, as Chinese women continued to be bound to the traditional gender roles and norms within the private sphere that have far from being altered by the socialist ideology (Zuo & Bian, 2001). The conflict between women’s productive and reproductive responsibilities, to some extent, had been alleviated by the work unit welfare system in pre-reform era, through the provision of childcare, social service, and other family-support programs. Since the economic reform, especially the fundamental restructuring of the state-owned enterprises to more efficient and profit-driven entities in the mid-1990s, social responsibilities that used to be shouldered by the work units have been stripped off, escalating the work-family conflicts, especially for women with children, and resulting in the faster declining rate of women’s labor force participation and widening gender gap in earnings, despite the progress in education that women have achieved at the same time. Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 21

To be certain, our account for how marketization affects gender inequality in labor market through women’s family status is built upon the assumption that gender norms deeply rooted in patriarchal tradition of Confucianism persist, neither being undermined by the state intervention in Mao’s era nor being transformed by women’s improvement in education in the past decades. Not incidentally, some scholars have observed the recent revival of the traditional gender ideology in China, and the associated consequences of growing gender gap (Cohen & Wang, 2009; Fincher, 2014; Ji, 2015; Zuo & Bian, 2001). We thus call for more empirical studies to establish the direct role of gender ideology in affecting different stratification outcomes between men and women. Moreover, as gendered division of labor starts from family formation, the subsequent work- related decisions of an individual with regards to whether and when to enter the labor market, pursue career advancement, or exit from labor force altogether are by no means an independent decision but a joint one that involves considering the overall needs of the family to optimize the couples’ strengths. While our analyses rely on the retrospective survey data on individual men and women’s work history from CGSS2008, we hope that career information of both individuals and their spouses over time could be available in the future for investigating the research questions in this article. Finally, our findings could shed new lights on institutional circumstances under which marriage and childbirth affect women’s career mobility and labor market attainment. While the marriage and motherhood penalty for women is a universal phenomenon in all societies, cross- national comparative studies have revealed that married women’s role conflict between paid work and housework could be eased to some extent by the state either through legal regulations that prohibit open discrimination against women or through various social policies such as maternal leave and subsidized childcare in many welfare states (Esping-Anderson, 1990; Orloff, 1996). Gender earnings gaps are much lower in Scandinavian countries where family-friendly policies are adopted than in other western capitalist countries (Esping-Anderson, 1999). Our analysis, in a single country setting, demonstrated an opposite example of how economic marketization would increase the tension between family and work and render them more disadvantaged in labor markets in the new era, therefore, charted a dynamic pathway through which the withdrawal of the state could lead to the enlarging gender gaps in employment and earnings in contemporary China.

Converging Divergences: Gendered Patterns of Career Mobility in Urban China’s Economic Transition 22

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