Page 151 - 《社会》2021年第3期

社会·2021·3

composition of each occupation but overlook the role of occupational skills and working
conditions. Further more，existing studies also neglect the regional differences in the
effects of occupational characteristics. This study addresses these shortcomings. We
construct a series of occupational characteristics indicators using the data from the
Chinese census in 2010 and O*Net occupational database from the United States. We
then combine the occupation -based data with individual workers’ data from China
Family Panel Studies（CFPS） in 2010 and conduct a systematic analysis of the
mechanisms of occupational characteristics on the earning gender gap. Our study finds
that the gender effect on income after controlling a series of occupational characteristics
is basically the same as the gender effect obtained by controlling 193 specific
occupation types.The Oaxaca decomposition shows that sex composition within
occupations as well as gendered occupational skills are the two important mechanisms
for occupational characteristics to influence the earning gender gap, while the sex
difference in working environment cannot be used to explain the gender income gap. In
addition, our analysis confirms the heterogeneity in income returns for occupational
characteristics in regions with different levels of economic development.
Keywords：occupational gender segregation，occupational characteristics，gender
inequality， decomposition， regional heterogeneity

一、问题的提出

自 1949 年以来，伴随着妇女解放运动和教育扩张，中国女性的受
教育年限和劳动力市场的参与率都得到提升， 女性的受教育年限甚至
已经反超男性（李春玲，2010，2014），但劳动力市场的性别不平等现象
仍然存在，其中最重要的表现就是性别间的收入差距问题。 作为现代社
会一种重要资源和生活机会的结构性分配机制， 职业通过将男性和女
性分配在具有不同特征的职业内部，来维持劳动力市场的性别不平等，
进 而影 响 性 别 间 的 收 入 差 距（ England，et al.，1988，2002；Jacobs，1989；
Reskin，1993；Petersen and Morgan，1995）。 因此，研究职业特征作用于性
别收入差距的具体机制， 可以帮助我们更好地理解劳动力市场中的社
会分层与性别不平等问题。
国外的相关研究显示， 男性和女性在职业特征上的分布差异对劳
动力市场中两性的收入差距有很强的解释力。 女性占比越高的职业，其

· 144·