Employment structure in China from 1990 to 2015

Abstract

Using nationally representative samples from population census and mini-census of China, this study analyzes important employment dynamics in China from 1990 to 2015. The share of routine manual jobs decreased significantly, from 57% to 32%. The share of routine cognitive jobs as well as that of adults not working increased significantly, from 8% to 19%, and from 16% to 31%, respectively. However, the share of non-routine jobs did not change significantly. Our decomposition analysis reveals the composition effect resulting from the change in the composition of population demographics, the propensity effect from change in the probability of people with given demographic characteristics sorting into different employment categories, and the interaction effect of the co-movement of demographic group size changes and propensity changes given demographic characteristics. For the decline in routine manual jobs, each of these three effects contributes 68%, 66%, and −34%, respectively. Meanwhile, for the rise in routine cognitive jobs, each effect is 16%, 74%, and 11%, respectively. Finally, for the rise in the not-working population, each effect is 7%, 93%, and 0.3%, respectively.