The Wage Premium for State-owned Enterprise Employees and Its Formation Mechanism
Efforts to eliminate institutional barriers hindering the mobility of labor and other factors of production are key tasks in the current construction of a unified national market.For a long time,as a typical phenomenon of China's labor market's institutional segmentation,there has been a significant wage difference between state-owned enterprises(SOEs)and non-state-owned enterprises(non-SOEs).With the successful completion of the three-year action plan for SOE reform from 2020 to 2022,China's state-owned enterprises have continuously improved their employment market mechanism.At this stage,assessing the new characteristics of SOE relative to non-SOE wage premiums and analyzing their internal formation mechanisms is of great significance for further improving the market-oriented salary system of SOEs,deepening the market-oriented reform of labor factor markets,and advancing the integration of the domestic labor market.Using Chinese Enterprises Matching Employer-Employee Data,this study employs quantile regression and counterfactual decomposition methods to examine the wage premium in state-owned enterprises(SOEs)and its formation mechanism from 2017 to 2021.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:Currently,there is a wage premium for SOEs relative to non-state-owned enterprises(non-SOEs),with the wage premium mainly concentrated in the middle and high income levels.The main reason for the wage premium in SOEs is the segmentation of the labor market between SOEs and non-SOEs.Further analysis indicates that at high wage levels,workplace vulnerable groups such as women and agricultural household registrants receive some compensation for salary discrimination,resulting in a larger SOE wage premium among these groups.Based on the above findings,this study proposes the following policy recommendations.First,adhere to the direction of market-oriented reform for labor factor markets,further break down market segmentation,and especially facilitate the flow of labor between SOEs and non-SOEs in economically underdeveloped areas.Second,further promote the market-oriented reform of the employment system in SOEs.The next step of reform should focus on high-income groups such as managers in SOEs,strengthen performance assessments,and truly establish a market-oriented income formation mechanism where"staff can be promoted or demoted,and incomes can rise or fall."Lastly,strengthen the constraints against employment discrimination,particularly in private enterprises,to genuinely secure fair employment opportunities for vulnerable workplace groups like women and agricultural household registrants.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
