长期照护保险、女性就业与劳动平权——基于世代交叠模型和合成控制法的研究

Long-term Care Insurance, Female Employment and Equal Labor Rights: Based on the Overlapping Generation Model and the Synthetic Control Method

受累于繁重的家庭照料负担,女性的劳动参与意愿、工作时间和收入水平长期受到抑制,在职业选择和工资待遇等方面也容易遭遇多重歧视。文章建立了包含老年照料和长期照护保险的世代交叠模型,发现长期照护保险不仅能够促进劳动力供给,而且能够提高劳动力收入。文章利用2010-2018年中国196个城市面板数据,基于济南市长期照护保险典型试点实践,首次采用合成控制法量化评估了长期照护保险对女性就业的影响。研究发现,长期照护保险对女性就业具有显著的提升作用,长期照护保险的实行使得女性就业率提升了5-15个百分点,月收入增加了426-556元,日工作时间提高了0.3-0.6小时。长期照护保险在试点期间主要是通过减轻女性家庭老年人照料负担来提升其劳动力供给,而通过发展养老护理及其相关产业进而增加女性劳动力需求这一作用的路径仍很微弱。进一步研究表明,长期照护保险在促进男女就业率平等和城乡女性收入平等方面产生了积极作用,长期照护保险的实行使得女性与男性就业率比提高了5-7个百分点,农村女性与城市女性收入比提高了15-36个百分点。文章的研究结论为进一步完善长期照护保险制度、激励女性劳动参与和促进就业权益均等化提供了政策参考。

While contributing greatly to the development of society,women are burdened with heavy family care,and their willingness to participate in the labor force,work hours and income levels are permanently inhibited,as well as encountering multiple employment discrimination in terms of career choices and wages.This paper finds that long-term care insurance can promote labor supply and income by constructing an overlapping generation model with elderly care and long-term care insurance.Based on the panel data of 196 cities in China from 2010 to 2018 and the typical pilot practice of long-term care insurance in Jinan,this paper uses the synthetic control method for the first time to quantitatively assess the impact of long-term care insurance on women’s employment,along with a series of robustness tests such as excluding iterated weight cities,ranking tests and the asymptotic DID model.According to the characteristics of employment discrimination,this paper further analyzes the employment discrimination suffered by women,using the synthetic control method by selecting the three dimensions of gender discrimination,urban-rural discrimination and geographical discrimination,and the three aspects of employment rate,income and working hours.The results show that long-term care insurance has a significant promoting effect on female employment,with the implementation increasing female employment rate by 5-15 percentage points,monthly income by426-556 yuan,and daily working hours by 0.3-0.6 hours.During the pilot period,long-term care insurance has mainly increased the labor supply of female households by reducing their burden of elderly care,but the pathway of increasing female labor demand through the development of elderly care and related industries remains weak.Further research shows that long-term care insurance has had a positive effect in promoting equal employment rates between men and women and income equality between urban and rural women,with the implementation increasing the employment rate ratio of women to men by 5-7 percentage points and the income ratio of rural women to urban women by 15-36 percentage points.Based on the above results,this study proposes the following policy recommendations:On the one hand,we should improve the long-term care insurance system,including its coverage and security contents,to promote the structural optimization of the care patterns for the disabled elderly,and reduce the care burden and promote the social labor participation of working-age women in the families with the disabled elderly.On the other hand,we should promote the development of the elderly care industries and encourage the working-age women to participate in the long-term care business in various forms by setting up flexible compensation programs of long-term care insurance and improving supporting measures for female worker to participate in long-term care work.