Those laws meant to "protect" women from dangerous jobs are backfiring and actually making them poorer and more miserable.
April 10, 2026
Original Paper
Labor Market Regulation and Gender Wage Gap: Unintended Consequences of Female-Targeted Workplace Protection in China
SSRN · 6543070
The Takeaway
China introduced workplace protections to keep women away from hazardous tasks, but the move backfired. Instead of being safer, women saw their wages drop and were hired less often, leading to a measurable decline in their economic standing and mental health.
From the abstract
Gender-specific workplace safety and health policies are widely implemented, yet rigorous evidence on their labor market effects remains limited. This paper examines the impact of China’s 2012 workplace protection policy, which restricts women’s engagement in hazardous activities due to reproductive health considerations. Using nationally representative household survey data and a difference-in-difference-in-differences estimation strategy that exploits cross-industry variations in policy exposu