Research Progress on Human Capital Theory from the Perspective of Gender Differences
Human capital is one of the key factors driving economic growth.It has a profound impact on the labor market structure,income distribution,and social welfare system,and has important economic research significance.Narrowing the gender gap has always been an important goal set by the United Nations.Although countries around the world have made certain progress in gender equality by the Millennium Development Goals,the situation of discrimination against women is still severe.In 2015,the United Nations once again proposed"gender equality"in the Sustainable Development Goals,aiming to empower all women and girls.In October 2023,Claudia Goldin,professor of the Department of Economics at Harvard University,was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for"identifying the key drivers of gender differences in the labor market".This once again aroused academic attention to gender differences.As research in the field of gender economics continues to deepen and expand,the perspective of gender differences begins to be integrated into the study of human capital theory.This paper systematically reviews the research progress of human capital theory from the perspective of gender differences from four aspects:educational investment,career choice,company management,and difference balance.First,it explores gender differences in educational investment from the perspectives of family education and continuing education;second,it divides occupational gender segregation into horizontal and vertical segregation,and conducts research on gender differentiation in career choice at the supply side and demand side;third,the gender differences in company management are analyzed from three aspects:salary income,gender diversity of the board of directors and female entry barriers;finally,it sorts out some measures that balance the gender differences in human capital from the four aspects of human capital investment,workplace transparency,workplace status and policy intervention.This paper aims to contribute insights into the theoretical innovation of economics research in China and provides an academic reference for exploring China-specific issues.Different from existing literature which mostly focuses on investment efficiency,return on investment,and contribution to the economy of human capital,this paper pays more attention to the role of gender differences in human capital investment and return,which has important theoretical significance.First,the study of human capital theory from the perspective of gender differences supplements the traditional human capital theory and strengthens the consideration of the impact of gender factors on human capital accumulation and economic behavior.Second,human capital theory from the perspective of gender differences helps analyze gender heterogeneity in the labor market,such as employment promotion,wage gaps,and labor market segmentation.Lastly,research of human capital theory involves economics,sociology,psychology,and education,which promotes the intersection and integration between different disciplines.This research direction has indicated two significant advantages in the field of economics research in China.Firstly,this direction echoes the urgent practical challenges China is currently facing.China is in a period of dual transformation of socio-economic and demographic structure.It is facing a series of urgent issues such as marriage,childbirth,education,elderly care,career choice,employment,and economic growth.Chinese scholars need to use effective theoretical and empirical research results to deal with them.Secondly,this research direction is an emerging cross-disciplinary field,and there are still many issues that require in-depth exploration.For example,there is still a lack of literature that incorporates gender differences into the theoretical analysis framework for dynamic consideration,and empirical research on human capital investment under the framework of gender economics is still insufficient.Conducting expanded and cutting-edge in-depth research on the above-mentioned existing work will open up more cross-integrated research directions and innovative results in the field of economics.
Human CapitalGender EconomicsEducation InvestmentOccupational SegregationIncome Inequality
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
维普
