Gender Gaps in Wages, Hiring and Promotions: Sources and Policy Solutions

As part of China's 2021 three-child policy reform, provinces extended statutory maternity leave by varying amounts, creating a quasi-natural experiment. This paper combines China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data from 2014 to 2022 with a manually compiled provincial maternity leave policy dataset to examine how maternity leave extensions are associated with the gender wage gap. Using a continuous-dose triple-difference model across 30 provinces and 21,988 individuals, the study finds that the triple interaction coefficient (Female × Post × ExtMonths) is -0.1487 (SE = 0.0436, p = 0.001), indicating that each additional month of mandated leave is associated with an approximately 13.8% decline in women's relative wages compared to men's after the reform. However, the causal interpretation remains conditional due to overlapping reforms (the 2016 two-child policy) and the fact that the sample only includes workers with positive wages, excluding employment entry or exit. The policy implication is not to mechanically shorten maternity leave, but to consider leave length alongside cost sharing, fathers' leave, employer support, and anti-discrimination enforcement.