劳动力市场、性别和社会分层

Labor Markets, Gender and Social Stratification

本文将性别因素引入社会分层的研究,建立理解转型社会的中国性别分化的理论框架,以分析已出现的性别间和女性间的分化。一是重新评估计划经济体制中的性别分层及其后果。毛泽东时代伟大的社会主义实践打破了传统的性别等级观念,使女性获得了前所未有的社会人的地位。虽然男性权力并没有被本质性地改变,但女性作为参与社会劳动的能动者的实践活动重新定位了女性在社会分层中的位置,即女性是具有独立社会位置的人,这是女性进入劳动力市场的前提条件。二是重新评估劳动力市场的作用对性别间分层和女性间分层产生的影响。从性别比较的视角,两性间的分化是明显的,市场带来了更大的性别隔离、性别收入差和女性化职业的贬值。从劳动力市场看,劳动力市场因性别、阶级和城乡身份等带来的多元性,产生了性别内的分化。劳动力市场中涌现出女性低端劳动力群体和女性精英群体,无论她们是来自农村的女性,还是借助其他身份和能动性获得了精英位置的女性,她们都实现了向上的社会流动,成为中国经济和城市发展必不可少的力量。

This paper attempts to incorporate gender into the discussion of social stratification in order to conceptualize the gendered aspect of that process in transitional China and identify not only segregation based on gender but also among women themselves.The paper,first,reassesses the results of gender segregation existing in the previously planned economic system.Socialist experiments under Mao helped break the traditional gender based social rankings and allowed women for the first time to become members of a social order.Although men＇s power remained fundamentally unchallenged,women were able to enter labor markets as they had an independent position in social stratification based on their participation in social experiments as able-bodied agents.The paper,secondly,examines the effects of labor markets on stratification based on gender and that among women.As markets have brought greater gaps between women and men based on income and the devaluation of women＇s work,gender-based segregation stands out.The rise of gender-based segregation,class and the divide of social origins between rural and urban areas has,however,also created segregation within gender,particularly among women,between those who work in lower and lowest paid jobs and those who occupy offices.For the latter,whether they come from the countryside or they have mobilized other recourses to come to the level of office-occupiers,these women have moved upstream in society and become an indispensable force in the Chinese economic and urban development.