工作任务回报与性别工资差距

以信息和自动化技术为代表的通用技术变革全面重塑了劳动力市场的需求结构,替代了容易被程序化的常规任务,与完成非常规任务的分析、人际互动等认知技能更加互补,这可能对女性更有利,从而有助于缩小性别工资差距。采用世界银行数据,通过考察我国劳动力市场工作任务回报及其性别差异,对性别工资差距缩小的一个可能的机理进行了检验。研究发现:不同类型的工作任务回报在劳动力市场上具有较大差异,从事非常规任务在劳动力市场上均获得了显著的正向回报,而常规认知型工作任务回报则为负。非常规任务中的人际互动任务回报具有性别异质性,低技能和高技能女性的人际互动任务回报均显著为正,且远高于男性,在工作场所人际互动任务需求大幅增长的背景下,这可能是性别工资差距缩小的一个重要原因。从工作任务回报视角为性别工资差距缩小提供了一个新的解释。

Returns to Job Tasks and the Gender Wage Gap

The general technological change represented by information and automation technology has completely reshaped the demand structure of labor market.It replaced the routine tasks and complementing the non-routine tasks,which may be more beneficial to women and help to narrow the gender wage gap.This paper uses World Bank data to examine the returns to job tasks in China’s labor market and its gender differences,which may provide a possible mechanism for the narrow of gender wage gap.The study found that:1)the returns to different types of job tasks vary in the labor market,in which the non-routine tasks have achieved significant positive returns,while routine cognitive job tasks negative.2)The return to interactive tasks is gender heterogeneity by showing that the return to low-skilled and high-skilled women is significantly positive,and much higher than that of men.In the context of the significant increasing demand of interactive tasks in the workplace,this may be an important reason for the narrowing of gender wage gap.This paper provides a new explanation for the shrink of gender wage gap from the perspective of job tasks’return.