Abstract: Two conventional theories to explain gender-earning differentials, human capital theory and gender occupational segregation theory have both met challenges in the rising Chinese labor market. Using the JSnet 2009 data set, this study attempts to investigate the male-female earnings differential in China’s urban labor market with social capital perspective lens. Two research questions are examined. First, why does social capital affect earnings gap between genders in urban China’s labor market? Second, to what extent, after netting out the effects of all the other influential indicators, the earnings gap can be explained by different accesses to (capital deficit) and returns on social capital (return deficit) between genders. The improved Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition and quantile regression decomposition techniques are primarily used as statistical methods. It is found that after netting out the effects of other influential factors, like indicators of human capital and gender occupational segregation, social capital is the most crucial predictor of gender earnings gap in China’s urban labor market. Moreover, females’ social capital deficit and social capital return deficit simultaneously contribute to their earnings disadvantage in China’s urban labor market relative to their male counterparts.

Keywords: Social Capital, Gender-earning Differentials, Capital Deficit, Return Deficit

摘要： 在当前中国劳动力市场中，有关性别工资收入差异的诸多传统理论解释均遇到了一定程度的挑战。基于社会资本的理论视角，文章运用2009年中国八大城市社会网络与职业经历调查数据(JSnet2009),对性别收入差异议题进行再检验。在阐释了社会资本影响性别收入差异的机制后，文章进一步分解了社会资本对性别收入差异的贡献额。Oaxaca-Blinder分解显示，女性的社会资本欠缺，可解释性别收入差异的12.7 ％,占总解释量的70％以上;分位数回归分解进一步显示,在中高收入群体中,社会资本的性别差异更大,对性别收入差距的贡献更高,并且女性劳动者的社会资本回报率也显著低于男性；另外,女性在社会资本上欠缺还是导致职业性别隔离现象的重要原因。

关键词: 社会资本, 性别收入差异, 资本欠缺, 回报欠缺