Double Disadvantage? Internal Migration, Gender and Labour Market Outcomes Among Recent College Graduates in China

Abstract

This study examines three waves of data from a nationally representative survey, the China College Student Survey (2010, 2013 and 2015), to determine whether highly educated female graduates who choose to move outside their hukou-registered cities experience a double-negative effect in terms of initial earnings attainment and work organisation entry due to their gender and migrant status in China's urban labour market. The results from multinomial logistic regression and OLS models show that, on the one hand, female graduate migrants are less likely to enter government organisations that afford institutional protection from gender discrimination. On the other hand, female graduate migrants are paid significantly less than their male counterparts in the graduate labour market. Therefore, in China's urban labour market, female graduates suffer a double-negative effect on earnings attainment and work organisation entry. This study extends ‘the double-disadvantage thesis’ to the study of internal migration, contributing to existing knowledge by showing that the interaction between gender and migration produces different labour market outcomes among migrant groups.