产业数字化对性别工资差距的影响研究

Research on the Impact of Industrial Digitalization on the Gender Wage Gap

产业数字化会促进劳动者工资收入增长,并改变工资收入分配格局。根据“生产任务”模型和“肌肉—大脑”假说,产业数字化通过改变脑力劳动与体力劳动的相对价格、促进女性劳动力就业竞争力提升和相对优势发挥等,产生女性偏向的工资增长效应,从而可以缩小性别工资差距。将地区(省份)的产业数字化水平与2014年、2016年和2018年CLDS数据库的微观个体混合截面数据相匹配,分析表明:在样本期间女性劳动者与男性劳动者之间存在显著的工资收入差距;产业数字化能够显著促进劳动者的工资收入增长,该作用对女性劳动者更为显著,从而缩小了性别工资收入差距;产业数字化可以显著缩小低技能劳动群体和经济发展水平较高地区的性别工资差距,但对高技能劳动群体和经济发展水平较低地区的影响不显著;产业数字化对中低工资群体具有显著的促进工资增长和缩小性别工资差距作用,但对高工资群体的影响不显著。因此,各地区(尤其是欠发达地区)应加快推进产业数字化,并优化女性就业结构,充分发挥产业数字化对工资收入分配的改善作用。

While improving production efficiency and employment quality,industrial digitization has also reshaped the distribution mechanism of the labor market,resulting in new characteristics of the wage-income gap between different genders of the labor force.Reasonably identifying the effects of industrial digitization on the gender wage gap can help solve the problem of the gender wage gap in the new era and promote sustainable economic development.This paper constructs a theoretical model based on the idea of“production task”and the“muscle-brain”hypothesis,and builds a comprehensive evaluation index system of industrial digitization from the perspectives of industrial digitization and service industry digitization.Based on matching micro-individual data from the China Labor Dynamics Survey(CLDS)in 2014,2016 and 2018,we empirically examine the impact of industrial digitization on the gender wage gap.The results show that industrial digitization can significantly reduce the gender wage gap,and the conclusion still holds after robustness and endogeneity tests.Sub-sample regression finds that the effect of industrial digitization on reducing the gender wage gap is more pronounced in the group with a lower level of labor force skills and a relatively higher level of regional economic development.Further analysis reveals that industry digitalization inclines to improve female wage in the low and middle-income groups and can reduce the gender discrimination faced by middle-income groups in the labor market.Compared with the previous literature,this paper expands on the following three aspects:firstly,the theoretical model is constructed by combining the idea of“production task”and the“muscle-brain”hypothesis to analyze the effect of industrial digitization on the gender wage gap,which enriches the theoretical framework of the effect of industrial digitization on the gender wage gap and expands the convergence channel of the gender wage gap;secondly,on the basis of empirically testing the impact of industrial digitalization on the gender wage gap and taking into account the characteristics of China’s labor market,we further analyze the heterogeneity of the impact of industrial digitalization on the gender wage gap in terms of skill levels and levels of regional economic development,so as to provide a reference for the formulation of an effective policy for narrowing the gender wage gap;thirdly,with the help of unconditional quantile regression and decomposition,we analyze the effect of industrial digitization on the gender wage gap at different income quartiles,and analyze the constituent factors affecting the gender wage gap,so as to provide empirical experience for scientifically solving the problem of gender wage gap of the labor force nowadays.The findings of this paper explain,to a certain extent,the effect of industrial digitization on the gender wage gap,help to formulate a development model more suitable for the digitization of traditional industries in China,and provide a strong empirical basis for the targeted formulation of industrial digitization policies to reduce the gender wage gap.This will better promote female employment,optimize the employment structure of the labor market,and release the“gender dividend”.