The influences of gender on employers’ understanding of graduates’ employability and recruitment choices in China

Unequal graduate labour market outcomes for female graduates evidence their experiences of disadvantage in various forms, but our understanding of gender’s intersection with graduate employability is limited, especially from employers’ perspectives. This paper reports on a qualitative research project in which semi-structrued intervews were conducted with employers from different industries based in selected Chinese cities. These interviews probed their perceptions of graduate employability and their consequent recruitment choices in relation to gender. Findings suggest gender has considerable influence on employee recruitment, and male preference is clearly evident. Combining a cultural theory of choice and an institutional theory as a theoretical framework, the study provides a nuanced account of gender-influenced recruitment choice arising from an interplay of employers’ individual preferences with cultural influences at multiply levels. Whilst national and traditional gender norms and stereotypes still greatly influence employers’ understandings of graduate employability and perpetuate gender inequality in hiring practices, institutional culture and context also exert important mediating effects to such impacts. The study contributes significantly to the development of a more valid account of social behaviour - exemplified here in employers’ recruitment practices - than that offered by rational choice-inspired theory that has influenced ‘modernisation’ accounts of contemporary life.