Place‐Based Policies, Women's Wage Growth, and Household Human Capital Accumulation: Micro‐Evidence From China

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on multi‐source economic geographic big data, this paper examines the impact and mechanism of development zone establishment on the increase of women's wage income in the labor market from a township level spatial scale. Research shows that development zone establishment increases the wage income of female workers and exerts a profound influence on household human capital accumulation. Furthermore, we construct a general equilibrium analysis framework to decompose the mechanism into labor demand and supply channels. The results find that development zone establishment can increase the wage income of female workers by reducing labor participation costs, such as commuting barriers and motherhood penalties, and by increasing labor market demand. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the location characteristics of development zones significantly influence their policy effects. Development zones located far from urban areas have more significant marginal effects on increasing women's income and driving the expansion of the service industry, such as catering and retail. Additionally, women facing more severe baseline labor market barriers, including informal workers and migrants, experience wage gains at least as large as those of their formal‐sector and locally registered counterparts, consistent with the comparative‐static prediction that the marginal wage gain is increasing in the baseline participation cost. Extended analysis reveals that the gender dividend released by the development zone policy has significant intergenerational extensibility and promotes household human capital accumulation. This positive impact is more pronounced in development zones far from urban areas and among rural households. The findings suggest that continuing to expand suburban development zones and strengthening the intergenerational transmission of women's income gains can help bridge urban–rural disparities in human capital accumulation and advance the goal of common prosperity.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Review of Development Economics, 2026 · DOI ↗