This contribution documents the effect ofthe global financial crisis on women's off-farm employment in China's rural labor force. It begins by comparing the difference between the actual off-farm employment rate and the offfarm employment rate under the assumption of "business as usual" (BAU - a counterfactual of what off-farm employment would have been in the absence of the crisis). The study also examines how the impact of the financial crisis hit different segments of the rural off-farm labor market. Using a primary dataset, the study found that the global financial crisis affected women workers. By April 2009, there was a 5.3 percentage point difference between off-farm employment under BAU and actual off-farm employment for women, and the monthly wages of women declined. Most of this impact affected migrant wage earners; however, the impact did not fall disproportionately on women. The recovery of women's employment was as fast as that of men's employment

Abstract: The goal of the present paper is to examine how the expansion of the economy from 2000 has affected rural off-farm labor market participation. Specifically, we seek to determine whether off-farm labor increased after 2000, what forms of employment are driving trends in off-farm labor and whether gender differences can be observed in off farm employment trends. Using a nationally representative dataset that consist of two waves of surveys conducted in 2000 and 2008 in six provinces, this paper finds that off farm labor market participation continued to rise steadily in the early 2000s. However, there is a clear difference in the trends associated with occupational choice before and after 2000. In addition, we find that rural off-farm employment trends are different for men and women. Our analysis also shows that the rise of wage-earning employment corresponds with an increasing unskilled wage for both men and women.

Although China has experienced rapid economic growth over the past few decades, significant health and nutritional problems remain. Little work has been done to track basic diseases, such as iron-deficiency anemia, so the exact prevalence of these health problems is unknown. The goals of this study were to assess the prevalence of anemia in China and identify individual, household and community-based factors associated with anemia. We used data from the 2009 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), including the measurement of he- moglobin levels among 7,261 individuals from 170 communities and 7 provinces in central and eastern China. The overall prevalence of anemia was 13.4% using the WHO’s blood hemoglobin thresholds (1968). This means in China’s more developed central and eastern regions up to 180 million people may be anemic. Some vulnerable subgroups were disproportionately affected by anemia. Seniors (aged 60 years and above) were more likely to be anemic than younger age cohorts, and females had higher anemia prevalence among all age groups except among children aged 7 to 14 years. We found a negative correlation between household wealth and the presence of anemia, suggesting anemia prevalence may decline as China’s economy grows. However, the prevalence of anemia was greater in migrant households, which should be experiencing an improved economic status.

This paper studies women’s participation in village elections. It focuses on the impact of voting rights training on women’s knowledge, and their voting behaviors in Ningxia, China, a Hui nationality autonomous region with a conservative cultural environment for women. A randomized controlled trial has been used in the study.

One’s opportunity to attend college and earn a degree has increased dramatically in China. However, that does not mean that everyone has an equal opportunity. Historically, there has been well-documented systematic discrimination against minorities, women, and the rural poor. The main question of this paper is whether or not this discrimination has persisted since the recent expansion of China’s tertiary education system. Using a census of incoming freshmen from four tier-one universities, this paper assesses if certain types of students are overrepresented while other types of students are underrepresented. Comparing the shares of students from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds from our primary survey data with government generated census statistics, we conclude that poor, minority, and rural female students are systematically underrepresented. In contrast, rich, Han, urban males are dominant in college.

Although there is evidence that there was gender inequality in China’s education system in the 1980s, the literature in China has mixed evidence on improvements in gender inequality in educational attainment over the past three decades. Some suggest gender inequality is still severe; others report progress. We seek to understand the progress China has made (if any) in reducing gender inequality in education since the 1980s. To meet this goal, we use a meta-analysis approach which provides a new quantitative review of a relatively large volume of empirical literature on gender educational differentials. This article analyzes differences across both time and space, and also across different grade levels and ethnicities. Our results indicate that gender inequality in educational attainment still exists, but it has been narrowing over time. Moreover, it varies by area (rural versus urban) and grade level. There is nearly no significant gender inequality in the case of girls in urban areas or in the case of the 9 years of compulsory education (primary school and junior high school). Girls, however, still face inequality in rural areas (although inequality is falling over time) and when they reach high school or beyond. (JEL I24)

Officials in China claim that voting rates in rural village elections are high. Unfortunately, these rates are assumptions, not facts. The true voting rate is lower, and much lower for women. We postulate that this could be due to insufficient knowledge about their rights.

The objective of this paper is to test whether women and village leaders’ knowledge about women’s voting rights affects women’s voting behavior. We report on the results of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving 700 women in China’s Fujian and Liaoning Provinces. Villages were randomly assigned to either a control group or one of three intervention groups. One intervention provided voting training to women only, another provided training to both women and village leaders and the third provided training to village leaders only.

The data show that after women received training, their scores on a test of voting knowledge increased and they more fully exercised their voting rights. When only village leaders were trained, test scores and voting behaviors were not statistically different from the control villages.

Experts agree that computers and computing play an important role in education. Since the 1980s there has been a debate about gender as it relates to computers and education. However, results regarding gender differences concerning computer use in education are not consistent. In particular there is little work done in China on this issue. Therefore, the overall goal of this paper is to demonstrate whether girls and boys can gain equally from computer-based education in China’s elementary schools. To do so we analyze results from three randomized field experiments of a Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) program and one laptop per child (OLPC) program. The field experiments are carried out in three kinds of schools: Shannxi rural public schools; Qinghai minority public schools; and Beijing migrant schools. Although CAL and OLPC have been considered cost effective means to improve learning outcomes, it is not known whether the programs impact girls differently than boys. Our analysis shows that, in fact, there were no differences between female and male students in either the improvement in standardized math test scores or Chinese test scores with either the CAL or OLPC programs. Our study suggests that among disadvantaged students in China’s rural areas and migrant communities, there is reason to believe that computer based learning can benefit both girls and boys equally. This finding has possible implications for China’s ongoing efforts to integrate computers and computing technologies into the nation’s underserved schools.