This book considers the positive and negative impacts of the minimum wage policy in China. Since China enacted its first minimum wage law in 1994, the magnitude and frequency of changes in the minimum wage have been substantial, both over time and across jurisdictions. The results from China’s experience show that rapidly increasing minimum wages have helped increase average wages and reduce the gender wage gap, income inequality, and poverty. However, the fast-rising minimum wage has also resulted in the loss of employment for young adults, women, low-skilled workers, and migrant workers. Additionally, higher minimum wages have a negative impact on firm profitability and adverse effects on firm’s human capital investment. In summary, the Chinese minimum wage policy has shown both positive and negative impacts on the affected workers. Through unpacking these findings, the book highlights the importance of rigorous research to inform evidence-based policymaking and provides lessons for other transitional and developing economies.

This paper provides the first systematic study of how minimum wage policies in China affect firm employment over the 2000-2007 periods. Using a novel dataset of minimum wage regulations across more than 2,800 counties matched with firm-level data, we investigate both the effect of the minimum wage and its policy enforcement tightening in 2004. A dynamic panel (difference GMM) estimator is combined with a “neighbor-pairs-approach” to control for unobservable heterogeneity common to “border counties” that are subject to different minimum wage changes. We show that minimum wage increases have a significant negative impact on employment, with an estimated elasticity of -0.1. Furthermore, we find a heterogeneous effect of the minimum wage on employment which depends on the firm's wage level. Specifically, the minimum wage has a greater negative impact on employment in low-wage firms than in high-wage firms. Our results are robust for different treatment groups, sample attrition correction, and placebo tests.

Since China promulgated new minimum wage regulations in 2004, the magnitude and frequency of changes in the minimum wage have been substantial, both over time and across jurisdictions. This paper uses county-level minimum wage panel data and a longitudinal household survey from 16 representative provinces to estimate the employment effects of minimum wage changes in China over the period of 2004 to 2009. In contrast to the mixed results of previous studies using provincial-level data, we present evidence that minimum wage changes have significant adverse effects on employment in the Eastern and Central regions of China, and result in disemployment for females, young adults, and low-skilled workers.

“China’s Workers Wronged,” highlights the struggles and challenges faced by China’s workers during the country’s dramatic economic rise. The book is based on 88 interviews with Chinese workers conducted in recent years by China Labor Bulletin Executive Director Han Dongfang for RFA.

As the "world’s factory" China exerts an enormous pressure on workers around the world. Many nations have had to adjust to a new global political and economic reality, and so has China. Its workers and its official trade union federation have had to contend with rapid changes in industrial relations. Anita Chan argues that Chinese labor is too often viewed from a prism of exceptionalism and too rarely examined comparatively, even though valuable insights can be derived by analyzing China’s workforce and labor relations side by side with the systems of other nations. The contributors to Chinese Workers in Comparative Perspective compare labor issues in China with those in the United States, Australia, Japan, India, Pakistan, Germany, Russia, Vietnam, and Taiwan. They also draw contrasts among different types of workplaces within China. The chapters address labor regimes and standards, describe efforts to reshape industrial relations to improve the circumstances of workers, and compare historical and structural developments in China and other industrial relations systems.