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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----


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


-0.035***

-41.728*** -0.045* -34.359* -0.028


-0.037***

-30.832*** -0.032** -20.289 -0.011


-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


-0.024 -7.703 -0.040 -29.211 0.001


0.002 4.453 -0.024 -37.530 0.086


-0.010 2.096 -0.049 -43.913 -0.032


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

20

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


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)

21

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）

22

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


Multinomial logitFarmemployment

Wage employment

Farmemployment

Wage employment

Farmemployment

Wage employment


-0.095(0.134)

-0.115(0.120)

0.021(0.192)

-0.239(0.175)

-0.053(0.342)

-0.239(0.33)


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) ***


0.131(0.112)

-0.156(0.108) *

0.720(0.260) ***

0.278(0.247)

0.022(0.222)

-0.654(0.239) ***


-0.166(0.113)

-0.360(0.109) ***

-0.247(0.245)

-0.120(0.225)

-0.217(0.211)

-0.677***(0.232)


-0.052(0.092)

-0.160(0.089) *

0.287(0.177)

0.170(0.175) *

-0.231(0.249)

-0.542(0.263) **


-0.200(0.081) **

-0.234(0.080) ***

-0.299(0.154) *

-0.259(0.156)

0.094(0.198)

0.046(0.21)


-0.070(0.079)

-0.192(0.077) **

0.119(0.103)

-0.049(0.100) *

-1.070(0.252) ***

-1.038(0.273) ***


-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) ***

24

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)


-0.284(0.153) *

-0.113(0.141)

-0.281(0.329)

0.048(0.304)

-0.789(0.371) **

-0.743(0.388) *


-0.347(0.154) **

-0.171(0.142)

-0.839(0.522)

-0.742(0.447) *

0.061(0.363)

0.610(0.392) *


-0.300(0.146) **

-0.168(0.131)

-0.207(0.342)

-0.053(0.315)

-0.320(0.27)

-0.463(0.267) *


-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.

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