Gender wage inequality in the transitional Chinese economy: A critical review of post-reform research

China's economic reform has brought significant changes to its income distribution system. This article critically and systematically reviews a growing but scattered literature on gender wage inequality in post-reform China. It concludes that, due to appropriate rewards of human capital characteristics, market liberation gives rise to a gender wage differential which is similar to or smaller than the differential in most industrialised and developing nations. Moreover, the gender wage gap is smaller in urban industries than in rural ones. Gender wage discrimination that accounts for unexplained components is generally smaller than that of the earnings differential. Increased market competition does not seem to reduce gender wage inequality. However, the current literature is inconclusive, as it examines the gender wage inequality of only a tiny fraction of the country's vast population and geography before China's accelerated reform in the late 1990s. Large-scale empirical research, exploring effects of such reform on gender wage inequality is therefore urgently needed.