Publication Type
Working Paper
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
7-2023
Abstract
Young women outnumber young men in cities in many countries during periods of economic growth and urbanization. This gender imbalance among young urbanites is more pronounced in larger cities. We use the gradual rollout of special economic zones across China as a quasi-experiment to establish the causes of this gender imbalance. Our analysis suggests that a key contributor is gender-differential incentives to migrate due to rural women’s higher likelihood of marrying and marrying up in cities when urbanization creates more economic opportunities and an abundance of high-income marriage-age men.
Keywords
Urbanization, migration, gender imbalance, labor market, marriage market
Discipline
Gender and Sexuality | Labor Economics | Regional Economics
Research Areas
Applied Microeconomics
First Page
1
Last Page
47
Publisher
Paper No. 10-2023
Citation
KOH, Yumi; JING, Li; WU, Yifan; YI, Junjian; and ZHANG, Hanzhe.
Young women in cities. (2023). 1-47.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2686
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.