停滞的静悄悄的革命: 人口控制、性别比失衡与劳动参与性别差距的扩大
The Stalled Quiet Revolution: Population Control, Skewed Sex Ratios, and the Widening Gender Gap in Labor Force Participation
Journal of Development Economics · 2025 · [{"name": "Zihao Chen", "affiliation": ["China Agricultural University"]}, {"name": "Yawen Ding", "affiliation": ["Tongji University"]}, {"name": "Xu Tian", "affiliation": ["China Agricultural University"]}]
中文摘要
中国女性劳动参与率的持续下降，与全球女性经济参与度上升的“静默革命”形成鲜明对比。本文通过人口控制政策的长期非预期效应——这些政策扭曲了婚姻市场与劳动力市场中的性别比——为这一独特趋势提供了新的解释。采用队列双重差分策略，我们发现，中国独生子女政策的实施使女性劳动参与率相对于男性显著降低了12个百分点。劳动参与率性别差距的扩大主要由独生子女政策导致的男性偏向性别比所驱动。具体而言，面临更偏斜性别比的女性表现出更高的结婚率和生育率、更优的丈夫质量、更强的家庭内部议价能力、更长的闲暇时间，以及更少与抱负相关的心理特质。劳动力市场扭曲对劳动参与率性别差距的挤出效应则起次要作用。这些发现解释了中国女性劳动供给的持续下降以及劳动参与率性别差距的持续扩大。
Abstract
China's declining female labor force participation (LFP) stands in stark contrast to the global “quiet revolution” of rising women's economic engagement. This paper offers a novel explanation for this unique trend through the long-term unintended effects of population control policies, which have distorted sex ratios in both marriage and labor markets. Using a cohort difference-in-differences strategy, we find that the introduction of China's One-Child Policy (OCP) significantly reduced women's LFP by 12 percentage points relative to their male counterparts. The widening gender gap in LFP is primarily driven by male-biased sex ratios resulting from the OCP. Specifically, women exposed to more skewed sex ratios exhibit higher marriage and fertility rates, improved husband quality, greater intra-household bargaining power, extended leisure time, and fewer ambition-related psychological traits. The crowding-out effect of labor market distortions on the gender gap in LFP plays a secondary role. These insights explain the continuing decline in female labor supply and the enlarging gender gap in LFP in China.