何浩然,Sherry Xin Li and Yulin Han(硕士生),Labor Market Discrimination against Family Responsibilities: A Correspondence Study with Policy Change in China. Journal of Labor Economics (ABS 4), Available online March 2022,
https://doi.org/10.1086/719966
Abstract: China shifted its controversial one-child policy (1979–2015) to a two-child policy in 2016. We take advantage of this unexpected policy change and the heterogeneities in the pre-change environment to investigate labor market discrimination against expected family responsibilities. In a two-wave correspondence study before and after the policy change, we sent 8,848 fictitious resumes aged 22 to 29 in response to online job advertisements. Their gender and only-child/siblinged status were systematically varied. We find that women, but not men, are subject to labor market discrimination for expected family responsibilities. This discrimination worsens with the increase in women’s reproductive age.
文章简介:文章巧妙地利用2014-2015年所实施的“单独二孩”政策限制生育群体的异质性和2016年出其不意的“全面二孩”生育政策变化,在大型互联网招聘平台对雇主开展了两轮通讯审计实地实验,清晰地识别了育龄女性的预期家庭责任与其在劳动力市场中可能面临的歧视之间的因果关系。
在该研究中,作者通过向每个目标招聘广告投递了年龄处于22-29岁之间的8848份虚构简历,并在其中通过2×2的实验设计将求职者分为预期生育和家庭责任互不相同的四种求职者类型:女性独生子女、男性独生子女、女性非独生子女和男性非独生子女。基于所获数据,作者分别应用横截面双重差分、跨期双重差分和三重差分的方法对实验数据进行分析,所得结果显示育儿相关的预期家庭责任会导致女性求职者在招聘市场上收到面试反馈通知的概率降低,表明其受到了基于此因素的雇主歧视,而男性却没有受到此类歧视。此外,研究还发现研究样本中年龄偏大的女性求职者所受到的歧视更加严重,表明女性所受到的因预期家庭责任所导致的歧视会随着她们的年龄靠近或超过主要生育年龄而不断恶化。这一现象反映出雇主担心全面二孩政策可能导致育龄女性,尤其是年龄偏大的育龄女性,快速释放在此之前“被抑制的”生育需求, 而由此不愿雇佣女性员工的可能心态。
该研究为研判我国未来的生育放开和生育鼓励政策的可能影响及其对策,提供了及时重要的参考。在缺乏配套措施对育龄妇女劳动就业机会提供保护的情况下,进一步放开或鼓励生育也许会加剧劳动力市场对育龄女性的歧视,进而阻碍生育政策目标的圆满实现。该研究通过严谨的实验和实证方法展示了这种可能性并提出建议。