Glass ceiling or sticky floor? Examining the gender earnings differential across the earnings distribution in urban China, 1987–2004

Using 1987, 1996, and 2004 data, we show that the gender earnings differential in the Chinese urban labor market has increased across the earnings distribution, and the increase was greater at the lower quantiles. We interpret this as evidence of the stronger “sticky floor” effect. We use the reweighting and recentered influence function regression methods proposed by Firpo, Fortin, Lemieux to decompose gender earnings differentials across the...