Facing a changing labour force in China: Determinants of trust and reciprocity in an experimental labour market

Due to economic and demographic changes highly educated women are increasingly important for the Chinese labour market. Gender is a well-studied determinant of behaviour in economic experiments, as are similarly academic major, age and income. We study determinants of trust and reciprocity for Chinese subjects in a labour market experiment using two variants of a gift exchange framework with employers and workers. We find that women are significantly less trusting and less reciprocal in one game variant while this relationship is only clear for reciprocity in the other variant.