The Age of Uncertainty: Gender, Employment, and Economic Insecurity Among Youths in the United States and China

Langou Lian , University of California, Irvine
Feng Wang, University of California, Irvine

Changing employment and gender roles have created unprecedented economic uncertainties and social anxieties among young people in the world, and such changes are felt differently for women and men. Using comparable data from the 2013 PSID Transition to Adulthood Supplement (TAS) and from a 2014 survey of post-1980 birth cohort youths in Shanghai, China, we examine and compare employment and sense of economic security/insecurity among young adults in the United States and in China. Comparable questions in both surveys offer a rare opportunity to understand global changes in jobs, economic independence, and young people’s perceptions of future. We explore in this study factors that affect employment outcomes and perceived economic security or insecurity, with a special focus on gender differences across the two countries.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 8. Economy, Labor Force, Education, & Inequality