Little Emperors in the Workplace: Labor Market Consequences of China's One-Child Policy

27 Pages Posted: 5 Mar 2020 Last revised: 20 Apr 2023

See all articles by Yuyu Chen

Yuyu Chen

Peking University - Guanghua School of Management

Eik Swee

University of Melbourne

Hui Wang

Peking University - Guanghua School of Management

Date Written: February 9, 2020

Abstract

What is the impact of China's One-Child Policy on the labor market outcomes of the only children that it engendered? This paper quantifies the wage income gap between only children and their peers (i.e. those with siblings), and uncovers the channels that underlie it. While only children receive higher wage income on average, we find that this only-child premium disappears completely once their superior schooling attainment and family background are accounted for. Moreover, we learn that the OCP resulted in a negative only-child effect on wage income, after conditioning on pre-determined characteristics; this may be due to only children lacking socio-emotional attributes that are valued in the labor market. Our results deliver important insights for China as only children continue to dominate its labor force at a rapid pace.

Keywords: One-Child Policy, wage gap, personality traits, social attributes

JEL Classification: J13, J18, J24, J31

Suggested Citation

Chen, Yuyu and Swee, Eik and Wang, Hui, Little Emperors in the Workplace: Labor Market Consequences of China's One-Child Policy (February 9, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3534974 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3534974

Yuyu Chen

Peking University - Guanghua School of Management ( email )

Peking University
Beijing, Beijing 100871
China

Eik Swee (Contact Author)

University of Melbourne ( email )

111 Barry Street
Melbourne, Victoria 3010
Australia

HOME PAGE: http://www.eikswee.com/

Hui Wang

Peking University - Guanghua School of Management ( email )

Peking University
Beijing, Beijing 100871
China

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
405
Abstract Views
1,634
Rank
133,313
PlumX Metrics