At present, there are many problems in China's labor market, such as uneven distribution of low-skilled workers and college graduates, uneven income and insufficient social security funds, social problems of rapid aging accompanied by low birth rate, and persistent poverty in underdeveloped areas. Due to the intensification of competition, different personal preferences, lack of information and the influence of stereotypes, discrimination in the labor market has intensified. This not only makes the discriminated lose some employment opportunities and rights, but also makes the employer lose profits. Discrimination can be said to be non-Pareto optimal behavior.

[Keywords:]

Employment discrimination of labor force competes for gender.

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Because of the uniqueness of China's labor market, the discrimination in China's labor market is special. In terms of employment, career choice, wage income, etc., the agricultural labor force has always been under the institutional discrimination of the government; The gender discrimination suffered by women is related to China's "pre-labor market discrimination" that favors boys over girls; The labor force in underdeveloped areas suffers from statistical discrimination by employers in developed coastal areas, which is related to the unbalanced regional development in China.

Discrimination is often encountered in the labor market. Discrimination is a word with obvious derogatory meaning. In Chinese, it refers to treating an individual or a group of individuals, which is not only unfair, but also unfair attitude or evaluation. In economics, a person's value in the labor market depends on all supply and demand factors that affect his marginal labor productivity. If factors unrelated to productivity gain positive or negative value in the labor market, it may lead to discrimination. So how does discrimination and its phenomenon come about?

This phenomenon is manifested in, on the one hand, the investigation and restriction of workers' non-economic factors have raised the threshold of career access, making it difficult for job seekers to find jobs. On the other hand, the growth of a large number of job seekers who can't find a job and the total number of new job seekers makes it possible for employers to restrict some non-economic personal characteristics of employees in the process of selecting employees, and the cost of such restrictions will decrease with the competition among the rapidly growing job seekers, so that employers can more strictly restrict the non-economic personal characteristics of employees when selecting employees. This has also led to some non-economic personal factors restricting the career development of on-the-job employees. This phenomenon of "discrimination-supply-demand-discrimination" has become an important factor that restricts the balance between supply and demand of labor, improves the employment rate, increases the ratio of social output to cost, and maintains social stability.

In the current labor market situation, the existence and development of discrimination presents several characteristics:

First of all, the types and manifestations of discrimination are diverse. This feature makes it more difficult for people to identify and control discrimination.

Second, the current situation of oversupply in the labor market has formed a vicious circle. For example, in the survey "What will you do when you are treated unfairly", the choice is more "work harder and look for opportunities". (1) The root cause of this phenomenon is that supply exceeds demand, and the competition among job seekers makes it impossible for workers to give up job opportunities easily. This choice of workers has become the condition for the existence and development of employer discrimination, which also shows that oversupply will aggravate discrimination. On the other hand, employer discrimination makes it more difficult for job seekers to find jobs. When employers' discrimination makes it impossible for employers and employees to reach an employment agreement, this employment contradiction will reduce the demand of workers who actually get job opportunities in the labor market, thus forming more job seekers and even more unemployed people, thus aggravating the vicious circle of oversupply.

Thirdly, the concealment and complexity of discrimination make individual workers less binding on discrimination. For example, employers' requirements for workers' work experience are not all discriminatory because of their different professional characteristics. Only those parts that are higher than the job performance requirements form discrimination, while the requirements for work experience and age of a job cannot be accurately quantified. This has formed an obstacle to discrimination against workers. Even if they are discriminated against, it is difficult to investigate and identify them.

Prejudice is the root of discrimination, that is, employers treat employees unfairly in order to implement their irrational subjective preferences or understanding. Because in fact, a person without economic rationality, at least his behavior can't be completely rational, so the subjective preference of the employer will inevitably affect his employment decision. (2)

Competition in the product market will weaken and eliminate discrimination. However, when the supply of workers exceeds the demand, the competition among employees makes workers accept discriminatory treatment in order to get jobs or career development, and employers can also hire workers at a relatively low cost according to their subjective preferences among enough job seekers. That is, the supply of workers is far greater than the demand, and the less extra cost employers pay for their subjective preferences, the more employers can consider their subjective preferences for the non-economic personal characteristics of workers. (3) The existence and persistence of discrimination is not conducive to the stability of social order and the improvement of people's living standards, to the efficiency and fairness of economic and social development, and will also bring a heavy burden to social security.

Discrimination is an inevitable product of uneven distribution of resources or advantages. Because of the scarcity and uneven distribution of resources and advantages, there are relatively weak groups and groups with comparative advantages. Subsequently, the dominant group naturally becomes a symbol of efficiency and success, and the disadvantaged group becomes the object of elimination. But in essence, vulnerable groups are not vulnerable to a great extent, and total denial leads to discrimination. Discrimination is the product of incomplete information and preconceived statistical prejudice. Because there is no good ability evaluation system, it is difficult to judge a person's actual productivity and ability. The usual standard is to evaluate and obtain information related to productivity according to their education level, age and test scores. These factors are only auxiliary information provided by subjective factors to some extent, and can also cause discrimination to a great extent. (4)