TY - JOUR
T1 - Hukou Status and Individual-Level Labor Market Discrimination
T2 - An Experiment in China
AU - Dulleck, Uwe
AU - Fooken, Jonas
AU - He, Yumei
N1 - Funding Information:
This research has received financial support by the QUT Business School and at Southeast University from HSSRF of the Ministry of Education (11YJCH055).
Funding Information:
We thank Luke Connelly, Simon G?chter, Pablo Guillen, Gigi Foster, Dirk Engelmann, Xing Meng, Nikos Nikiforakis, David Rowell, Juliana Silva Gon?alves, Bob Slonim, Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, conference participants at the WEAI 2011 in Brisbane; the 2nd Sydney Winter School in Experimental Economics 2011; the Australian PhD Conference 2011 in Brisbane; the ESEM 2012 in Malaga; and seminar participants at the universities of Innsbruck, Linz, and Lyon for helpful comments and advice. This research has received financial support by the QUT Business School and at Southeast University from HSSRF of the Ministry of Education (11YJCH055).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
PY - 2019/10/31
Y1 - 2019/10/31
N2 - This article examines discrimination based on hukou status, a legal construct that segregates locals and migrants in urban China. Local and migrant household helpers were recruited as experimental participants to interact in a standard gift exchange game (GEG) as well as a new variant of the GEG, called the wage promising game (WPG). The WPG uses non-binding wage offers and final wages that employers set after observing effort. In the GEG, both statistical and preference-based discrimination may motivate employers to offer lower wages to migrants than to locals, whereas in the WPG the statistical motive is excluded. Results reveal discrimination against migrants and show that preference-based discrimination is an important employer motive.
AB - This article examines discrimination based on hukou status, a legal construct that segregates locals and migrants in urban China. Local and migrant household helpers were recruited as experimental participants to interact in a standard gift exchange game (GEG) as well as a new variant of the GEG, called the wage promising game (WPG). The WPG uses non-binding wage offers and final wages that employers set after observing effort. In the GEG, both statistical and preference-based discrimination may motivate employers to offer lower wages to migrants than to locals, whereas in the WPG the statistical motive is excluded. Results reveal discrimination against migrants and show that preference-based discrimination is an important employer motive.
KW - artefactual field experiment
KW - hukou
KW - labor market discrimination
KW - legal status
KW - preference formation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074818873&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0019793919887118
DO - 10.1177/0019793919887118
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074818873
SN - 0019-7939
VL - 73
SP - 628
EP - 649
JO - ILR Review
JF - ILR Review
IS - 3
ER -