Gender and Self-Employment: Evidence from Rural China

The goal of this paper is to examine how has the expansion of the economy after 2000 affected rural off-farm labor market participation. Specifically, we seek to determine whether off-farm labor increased after 2000, what forms of employment are driving trends in off-farm labor, and whether gender differences can be observed in off-farm employment trends. Using a nationally representative dataset that consist of two waves of surveys done in 2000 and 2008 in six provinces, this paper finds that off-farm labor market participation has continued to rise steadily in the early 2000s. However, there is a clear difference in the trends associated with occupational choice before and after 2000. Additionally, we find that rural off-farm employment trends were different for men and women. Our analysis also shows that the rise of wage-earning employment corresponds with an increasing unskilled wage for both men and women.