Location: 368A Heady Hall

Description: Sherry Li CV
"Labor Market Discrimination against Family Responsibilities: A Correspondence Study with Policy Change in China"
Abstract: China’s highly controversial one-child policy was implemented from 1979 to 2015. It was amended several times and resulted in differential treatments in the birth policy depending on the parent(s)’s status of being an only-child or not. In January 2016 the one-child policy was abolished, and all families are now allowed to have up to two children. We use the heterogeneities in the birth policy before 2016 and the unexpected policy change in 2016 as two sources of identification to investigate labor market discrimination against the expected family responsibilities. In a two-wave correspondence study conducted before and after the policy change in 2016, we sent fictitious resumes to real online job advertisements in three most economically advanced cities in China. The information on the fictitious applicants’ gender and whether they were an only- or sibling-child were systematically varied. We find that women, but not men, are subject to labor market discrimination for their expected family responsibilities. This discrimination worsens as the probability of maternity increases with age for women. We find no evidence of the discrimination against the only-child applicants that is based on the commonly held negative stereotypes associated with them.

Contact Person: Elizabeth Hoffman