Until 1978, China was a socialist planned economy that promoted gender equality. After embarking on economic reforms in the 1990s and early 2000s, gender inequality in Chinese labor markets emerged as a significant economic and social issue.
In international levels, gender inequality in China is relatively low. In 2014, China ranked 40th out of 187 countries, on the United Nations Development Programme's Gender Inequality Index (GII). Among the components of GII, China's maternal mortality ratio was 32 out of 100,000 live births; 58.7% of women (aged 25 and older) had completed secondary education or more, while the counterpart statistic for men was 71.9%; women's labor force participation rate was 63.9% compared to 78.3% for men; and women representatives constituted 23.6% of seats in national parliament.
Video Gender inequality in China
Before 1949
Before the Maoist revolution in 1949, the roles of women were very restricted: women being wives, concubines, or prostitutes. Female oppression before 1949 stemmed partly from Confucian beliefs regarding gender roles in society, ideas which are still influential today. Wives were expected to be subservient to their husbands, kowtowing to their husbands every morning. Concubines had even less choice in their actions than wives did, and were kept as formal mistresses by men for sexual services and to produce children. Prostitutes were frequently women sold into brothels by their parents. While prostitution was legal in Qing Dynasty China, there were few laws regulating this industry. As a result, prostitutes were frequently little more than slaves and lacked legal rights.
Legally speaking, marriage was defined loosely and encompassed wives, concubines, and slaves. Men were free to pursue sex from women in any of these three categories of their "extended family". Women, however, were prohibited from engaging in sex with family slaves, a crime punishable by decapitation. Similarly, men were frequently polygamous--allowed one wife but an unlimited number of concubines--while women were permitted only one husband. This relationship between men and women in the household illustrated the power men held in the family and greater freedom they enjoyed compared to women. As regards to premarital sex, Qing laws punished both parties equally for the transgression. Women, however, generally would lose greater social standing due to an affair.
Confucianism
Confucianism provided a framework that morally judged individuals based on their faithfulness and adherence to social norms dictated by ancient customs. Men were evaluated in relation to how well they engaged in their social positions of husbands, fathers, sons or servants. Correspondingly, the value of women was measured based on their conduct as wives, mothers and daughters. Women were mainly assigned household activities and therefore considered as less important. Thus, this led to the belief that women were inferior.
In the late 12th century, neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi advocated the "Three Bonds"--a ruler's authority over subjects, father over son, and husband over wife. Husbands were further granted power over wives through the Confucian emphasis on sexual differentiation as a key to maintaining societal harmony. While husbands ruled the 'external world', women were restricted to the internal role of running the household and hence lacked power in society. While women had executive power in the household, their influence rarely rivalled that of men in the public sphere. Therefore, Confucian values reinforced and indicated a clear hierarchy. Women had a subordinate role to men, particularly young women who were at the lowest level of this hierarchy.
In Confucian Chinese culture, women's identities were often oppressed as the deeply rooted Confucian teachings that shaped Chinese culture and values reinforced a patriarchal family unit that devalued women. Daughters were seen as temporary family members of her father's side of the family, as she would leave the family unit through marriage. This notion of abandonment is reflected in Magarey Wolf's statement in "Uterine Families and the Women's Community", that "when a young woman marries, her formal ties with the household of her father are severed . . . that she, like the water, may never return". Under the influence of Chinese Confucian society, a woman's identity is subject to subordination and she is barely recognised as a person.
Confucian influences in contemporary China
For Chinese women, finding their sense of personhood through kinship was challenging when Confucian culture acts as an obstacle which creates a cultural oppression caused by Confucianism that highlights the principle of "nan zhu wai, nu zhu nei" - ???,???, which again reflects women's subordination by encouraging women to stay inside the household and advocate for men to be the breadwinners outside of the household. According to Wang's article (2012), "Goodbye Career, Hello Housekeeping", that "80 percent of husbands in China hope their wives will become full-time homemakers" in order to stabilize their marriage and to take care of their families. It is evident to realize that under the Confucian influence, it has always been the norm for women to quit their management job to fulfill their obligations as wives while men remain in control outside of the household and are able to keep their profession. Yet, it is rarely the case for people in the Chinese society to challenge the idea of women sacrificing their professional career because this act itself is being justified by the differential mode of association which is the fundamental idea that shapes Chinese social structure with a "relative ambiguous boundary between public and private spheres". This ambiguity may turn out to be a vital factor that poses obstacle in achieving gender equality. Consequently, women's sense of self in the Chinese society is never just about her own individuality, it also includes her husband, her inner circle and her family through her own marriage. Differential mode of association broadens and also complicates a woman's way in defining her own personhood. Women's dedication and sacrifices are justified by a societal norms that are organized through a differential mode of association and a Confucian culture that both strengthen women's subordination. As Chinese anthropologist - Fei XiaoTong points out "sacrificing the family for one's own interests, or the lineage for the interests of one's household, is in reality a formula, with this formula, it is impossible to prove that someone is acting selfishly". As a result, men is at an advantageous position since the differential mode of association has legitimizes women's sacrifice of their professional career to be a normal social pattern, because they are doing it for the overall benefit of the family. Therefore, husband's preference for his wife to stay home while he still keeps his career is not being seen as selfishness. Under this influence, men's selfishness is justified by differential mode of as-association which actually "drives out social consciousness" stated by anthropologist Fei Xiaotong. As a matter of fact, it turns out that for the ones - usually the wives who sacrifice their "lineage for the sake of [their] family, [they are actually projected as] performing a public duty". When women's sacrifice has been validated through the differential mode of association, the subordination of women on the other hand is strengthened by it, making it more difficult for the society to challenge the hidden gender inequality behind this inequality.
Foot binding
One particularly noted repressive practice was that of foot binding. Foot binding was performed on girls from the age of three. The aim was to limit the growth of girls' feet. It eventually resulting in the arch of the foot becoming so angled that the woman was in constant pain and had limited ability to walk. It had its origins during the Song Dynasty, practiced by the wealthiest members of society in the 11th century, but over time became more prominent and the habit spread to the peasantry. Foot binding was also adopted to differentiate between upper and lower classes and it was a symbol of attractiveness, with bound feet being referred to as "Golden Lotuses". Foot binding was an essential part of marriage eligibility; women often bound their feet in order to have access to better marriage partners. Men used foot binding as a tool to force women to be dependent, due to walking difficulties they would be bound to household activities. Moreover, foot binding also enabled the sexual objectification of women as it was used to fulfil men's sexual desires and fantasies. Therefore, foot binding put women in a subordinate state compared to men in many spheres; it reinforced the ideology that women were only useful in sexualised sedentary roles where they had to satisfy men's desires, thus, placing them in a highly inferior position compared to men.
Foot binding was such an established tradition in Chinese culture that in 1650, when the Emperor K'ang Hsi attempted to suppress it, he was unable to do so. Anti-foot binding sentiments only began in the late 19th century and continued to gain popularity until foot binding was eventually outlawed in 1912. In 1997 in Beijing, 38% of women aged 80 and older and 18% of women aged 70-79 showed deformities incurred due to foot binding. Women that had bound feet showed substantial disabilities and difficulty in carrying out simple tasks, such as standing up from a chair without assistance as well as a lower functional reach compared to women that had not bound their feet.
Women's education
The function of women's education was to reinforce the subordinate class of women and ensure that they obeyed rules set by men. Women were taught social norms that restricted their rights and behavior. Only women in the middle class or above would receive an education, and this would serve to show the superiority of that family. Women would have education at home and teachers would obey all the social norms. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were four famous books that were used as standard materials for women's education:Nü sishu, including Nüjie, written by Ban Zhao; Nü lunyu by Song Ruoxin; Nüxun by Empress Renxiao and Nüfan jielu by Ms. Liu. These academic materials supported norms that harmed women and restricted their daily routines. For instance, the three obediences and four virtues that were adopted by many women in society are written in Nüjie. The three obediences were to "obey father before marriage", "obey husband during marriage" and "obey sons during widowhood". These three norms described the subordination of women to men, and how women were controlled by men through different stages of life. The four virtues were "female virtues", "female words", "female appearances" and "female work". These four elements were designed based on fulfilling the needs of men and society. However, the desires and needs of women were trivialized and education became a tool to maintain the control of men over women.
Further, women's personalities were also restricted by this education. Women were taught to be weak and that they were always in the subordinate class and should respect men who were to be dominant over them. They had to be aware of the physical differences between men and women as well. Men were seen as yin while women were treated as yang. Yin and yang are the opposite of each other and thus women were not allowed to have physical interactions with men except in marriage. Women, as yin, were treated as a negative element. This ideology would reinforce the lower class status for women that they should worship men and, as yang, see themselves as a downplayed object. Women were even forced to stay at home and not allowed to leave their room in order to perform their loyalty. Obedience was the essential emphasis of women's education; they had to obey norms or orders from men and elder relatives. They had no bargaining power to resist since the society would not accept women who challenged men. Thus, as a socialization agent, women's education played an important role in shaping women's image and maintain their subordinate class for many dynasties.
Maps Gender inequality in China
The Mao era
In the era of the planned economy (1949-1978), also called the Mao Zedong era, the Communist Party sought to change Chinese women's status to be legally and socially equal to that of men. Various efforts from the Communist government attempted to challenge Confucian beliefs. One of the main goals was to improve the social position of women by promoting their entry into the labour force. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China, which was enacted in 1954, explicitly stated that women and men should have equal rights. To promote gender equality, the Communist party promoted the slogan "women hold up half the sky" to illustrate the importance of women for China's growing economic success. In order to realize gender equality, the Chinese Communist Party and the People's government implemented policies ensuring equal pay for equal work as well as equal opportunities for men and women.
In practice, however, gender inequality in pay still existed in the workplace during this era due to the prevalence of occupational and industrial segregation by gender. For example, enterprises typically had occupational differentiation into two groups, i.e. the primary jobs and secondary jobs. Men were more likely to be allocated to primary jobs and women to secondary jobs. Furthermore, while women were being incorporated into the labour market, they were still expected to look after their homes and families. As a result, women during the Mao era were said to bear "a double burden" of work both in the domestic and external spheres.
State feminism
State feminism refers to the state's support of women's equality in public and work sector through legislation, which were often progressive state laws to ensure gender equality with men. This state-supported feminism promoted employment opportunities for women in the state sectors as well as providing benefits such as maternity leave and day care to female workers. Additionally, state feminism also enforced marriage laws that prohibited polygamy, the buying and selling of women, as well as prohibiting arranged marriage and prostitution.
During the Mao era, as stated by Yang in her article "From Gender Erasure to Gender Difference", state feminism did liberate "women from the traditional kinship patriarchy, but although women were catapulted into the public sphere of labor and politics, the feminist agenda was forgotten with the decline of gender salience and women's transformation into state subjects in a new masculine state order". Although there were more work opportunities for women under state feminism, it changed the social interpretations and context for women under which they worked. . Lisa Rofel, an American anthropologist studying feminism and gender studies, has stated: "the status of unfortunate widows (and their daughters) of poor families changed dramatically from 'broken shoes' to 'labor models' after 1949". Although state feminism provided some legal protection to women, gender equality was not achieved by state feminism. Gail Hershatter supported this idea, stating: "the communist revolution didn't change the work women did. Women had always worked. What the revolution changed is the work environment and the social interpretation of working outside of familial context."
The post-Mao era: Economic reforms and the labor market
Changing employment policy was a major part of China's reforms following the Mao era. During the Mao era, China formed the "Tong Bao Tong Pei" employment system. This centralised system created government-guaranteed employment. Following the Chinese Cultural Revolution, due to large-scale unemployment, the Communist party and government phased out the guaranteed employment and conducted reforms to the employment system as part of larger economic changes.
Reform took place in three stages. In the first stage (1978-1991), the existing framework was adapted: maintaining planned employment as the primary form of employment in China while adding the double-track system, permitting both government and independent employment. In the second stage (1992-2001), additional reforms further promoted the market-oriented employment system while still maintaining a degree of planned employment. In the third stage (post-2001), the reform process was further accelerated to generate a market-oriented employment system where active employment was the primary form of work. Overall, market reforms took China away from central economic planning and towards a system based on capitalist market mechanisms.
While women have gained significantly greater opportunities for work under the new economic reforms, the cost of restructuring has disproportionately fallen upon women. China's market-oriented economic reforms undermined gender equality in the area of employment by using migrant women as a cheap and flexible labor force. Migrant women continue to make up a large proportion of factory workers, maids, and domestic workers--all roles that make women particularly susceptible to exploitation due to the lack of public scrutiny on their workplaces. These women, however, are vital to the success of China's free market economy; without their inexpensive labor, China could not compete successfully in the global manufacturing market. Without strict government regulations protecting women's rights, partially due to high degrees of corruption in China, gender inequality in labor market continues to be an issue plaguing the free market system in China.
After the economic reforms, the average real earnings of men professional workers have grown by 350%. Even though women have gained working opportunities, the unparalleled growth in the salaries of men have reinforced the gender wage gap even further. The greatest changes in the wage gap have taken place during the late 1990s, with the labour market shifting from an administratively regulated wage system to a market oriented one, caused the wage gap to broaden substantially, and across all job sectors.
Inequality in the workplace
Earnings inequality
Wage stratification according to gender has become a major issue in post-reform China. A 2013 study found that women are paid 75.4% of what men are paid--averaging 399 ¥/month compared to 529 ¥/month for men. These statistics are in line with previous findings; a 1990 survey of wages found that women made 77.4% of men's incomes in urban areas (149.6 yuan compared to 193.2 yuan for men) and 81.4% of men's incomes in rural areas (average annual income of 1,235 yuan for women and 1,518 yuan for men). These findings show that the income gap has not been closing in recent years in China, in fact wage inequality may be on the rise. Two-thirds of this differential has been attributed to unequal pay for the same work. The remaining third of the difference results from higher quality skills men acquired through better education opportunities, managerial positions, and previous work experiences. Since women have limited ability to develop the education or skills necessary to achieve higher level jobs due to their gender, they are frequently paid less for their work. For instance, female entrepreneurs are denied access to the same networking opportunities as their male counterparts. Thus, there is an array of factors that have aided the rise in the earnings inequality in China. Educational background and profession have been identified as two main factors of an increased gender wage gap. Additionally, regional impacts have also been recognised as one of the main causes of the increasing earnings inequality. Furthermore, women in the workplace still face discrimination and are discouraged in enrolling in managerial roles and high paid jobs. The higher ends of most sectors are still mainly men dominated and business events often include the sexual objectification of women. For instance, in Chinese business culture, deals and partnerships are constructed through evenings of banqueting, going to KTV bars, and drinking. Female hostesses, and sometimes prostitutes, play an important role in the success of these gatherings by highlighting the masculinity of the businessmen. Due to the highly gendered and sexualized nature of these events, female entrepreneurs are frequently discouraged from or uncomfortable attending these networking evenings. As a result, businesswomen have lesser access to the networks of government officials, business partners, and underworld organizations that are crucial to entrepreneurial success in China. Ultimately, the earnings inequality has evidently increased over time in all sectors. Moreover, women objectification in the business world is still common and it lowers the willingness of women to participate in Chinese business, thus, furthering the gender wage gap.
Occupational segregation
Two new trends in the labor market since the China's economic reforms are the feminization of informal sector's employment and the devaluation of female dominated occupations. A survey of seven provinces and eleven cities found that between 1985 and 2000, gender segregation increased in forty-four out of fifty-one examined occupations. Further, women were restricted from entering a larger number of professional occupations based on their gender. Women were barred from entering more white-collar jobs than blue-collar jobs--demonstrating the difficulty women have attaining higher level jobs in China. One of the impacts of gendered jobs is lower wages for women, as illustrated by the lower average incomes of female dominated enterprises compared to male dominated enterprises. For instance, in the early 1990s, a rise in number of female employees in the sales and service industries was accompanied with a reduction in the average income in these sectors. Further, data from this same time period indicates an inverse relationship between the proportion of women employed at an instruction and the average wage of the institution's employees.
The beauty economy
The beauty economy refers to companies using the beauty of attractive young women to increase profits. The women used to promote goods and services are generally referred to as Pink-collar workers. These women can be found in settings like car shows, company booths at conventions, as well as in places less often thought of like publishing, insurance, and real estate development. The modern beauty economy illustrate a marked shift from attitudes in the Mao Era--where sexualities were subdued to promote gender equality. In 21st century China, sexualities are promoted for use in capitalist endeavors. While many women involved in the beauty economy hold relatively mundane jobs, others are involved in legally complicated endeavors and are considered "grey women"--mistresses and hostesses who cater to rich clientele. These women are selling their female sexuality, and sometimes bodies, as a consumable good in the capitalist economy. The close involvement with hypersexualized grey women and the business world has made extramarital affairs common amongst Chinese businessmen. This highly publicized trend has created a new submarket in the beauty economy providing aging wives with products to consume to stay youthful and ideally help keep their husbands faithful. As of 2004, China had the 8th largest cosmetics market in the world and the 2nd largest in Asia. The beauty economy has set high cultural standards for physical appearance--encouraging women to consume products to stay youthful with the looming threat of aging ruining their success both in the marketplace and at home.
Unemployment
During the State-owned Enterprise (SOE) reforms of the late 1990s, women were laid off in greater numbers and experienced larger pay cuts than men. Additionally, female-dominated industries such as the textile industry and other light industry were affected greatly by the enterprise reform and economic reform in the 1990s, resulting in the unemployment of many women. Further, employees occupying so called secondary jobs were laid off in greater numbers than those in primary jobs. Since women occupied a high proportion in these secondary jobs, they were the first to be laid off during the economic downturn. Further, women were forced to retire at a younger age than men. In general the government-mandated retirement age for women was five years younger than that for men, while internal retirement age (determined by individual enterprises) was even lower for women. Lastly, the enterprises that laid off the most workers were those collective enterprises that had poor performance and were unable to survive in the new market economy. These collective enterprises, however, employed larger proportions of women than men. As a result, when the companies went under, larger numbers of women than men were left unemployed.
Discriminatory hiring practices
During market-oriented reforms, there was widespread evidence of employment discrimination in the hiring process. Gender discrimination during recruitment can be divided into two main categories: explicit and hidden gender discrimination. Explicit gender discrimination refers to directly stated restrictions on women in the recruitment process. Hidden gender discrimination occurs primarily through preferential hiring of men. Generally, there are three kinds of gender discrimination in the process of hiring in contemporary China. First, gender restrictions on career and posts creates an environment where women are generally only welcomed into certain career roles that match traditional gender roles for women--mainly domestic, secretarial, or factory work. Second, gender discrimination in recruitment often affects women of reproductive age who are frequently discriminated against in hiring due to potential future loss of productivity resulting from pregnancy. Third, age discrimination affects many women, especially those working in the service industry where youth is a key component of success in the workplace. In this sector, women under the age of 30 are frequently denied jobs. Female job-seekers over the age of 40 in most industries particularly struggle with age discrimination, despite no longer being of child-bearing age. The age limit for men is more relaxed, usually under 40 or 45 years of age. While there are laws in place to prevent such practices, there are few enforcement mechanisms to ensure the laws are followed. As a result, recruitment in China's national civil units and national government departments as well as state-owned large and medium-sized enterprises frequently fail to comply with these national equality employment laws.
Impact of foreign direct investment on wages
Foreign direct investment, also known as FDI, has significantly impacted employment in China. The number of employees hired by foreign direct investment enterprises located in China urban regions increased steadily from 1985 to 2005. Between 2002 and 2005, the number of employees hired by FDI enterprises in urban China increased by 5.95 million. FDI is mainly driven by the low cost of labor in China. A considerable number of foreign-invested enterprises are based in China's labor-intensive industries, such as the garment industry, electronics manufacturing, and the food and beverage processing industry.
FDI has disproportionately affected women, who are frequently employed in the low skill, low paying factory jobs that are funded by foreign investment. A 2000 study found that 62.1% of FDI employed workers were female. Gendered wages, however, have been inconsistently affected by FDI, with pay equality in FDI industries increasing in 1995 and decreasing in 2005. This shift may be a result of recent greater FDI investment in production, resulting in additional creation of low paying factory jobs which are predominantly filled by women.
Familial pressure and marriage
Women also face significant pressures from their families during their mid to late twenties to quit working and get married. For instance, in Rural Northwest China, some mothers still consider education less important for their daughters, as they are expected to get married and leave their homes. Nevertheless, there is an insignificant gender gap in economic investments in education in Rural Northwest China, showing progress in gender equality in educational settings. While work can be a way for women to postpone marriage, failure to ultimately marry would be socially unacceptable for Chinese women. As a result, fewer Chinese women remain working past marriage and those who do often struggle with balancing work with familial expectations in the home. By relinquishing income generation to their husbands and staying at home, many Chinese women lose autonomy and authority. Further, general societal adherence to strict Confucian values regarding filial piety and women's obedience to men--intended to create hierarchies in the home that produce harmony in society--produces an extremely patrilineal and patriarchal system that inhibits gender equality. Marriage pressures today stem from these Confucian values that promote the traditional necessity for women to marry to continue the family lineage by bearing a son.
Familial pressure has been a main driving forces of Chinese marriages in the past and it still is in the present. Even though, society has progressed from the past traditional values, heterosexual marriages are still the norm and the most socially accepted form of union. This leads to struggles for LGBTQ marriages to be accepted equally. Therefore, this often stems in contract or cooperative marriages (hezuo hunyin or xingshi hunyin). Cooperative marriages are an extreme form of heterosexual pretence; these types of unions are typically consensual relationships performed by a lesbian woman (lala) and a gay man. Hence, cooperative marriages are the result of high familial pressures to conform to societal expectations of a heterosexual marriage, underpinning a current inequality for same sexed marriages. Therefore, marriage in China is still often perceived as a social construct and a way of adapting to society's rules instead of a union based upon mutual love and attraction.
Another example of the familial pressure in Chinese Society are flash marriages. Flash or blitz marriage is a union between partners who have known each other for less than a month. This form of union has become increasingly popular in China due to current economic and social factors. Moreover, in Contemporary China, both men and women still perceive happiness as a result of stability, particularly in the relationship and family sphere of their lives. However, financial stability and successful careers have also started to become predominant aspirations amongst young professionals. Young professionals, particularly women, are often still expected to marry at a relatively young age which society considers proper, and if they fail to do so they are referred to as left over women. Moreover, the high familial pressure reinforces this ideology, and the focus on career development often leads to less time available for individuals' personal lives. Therefore, this array of factors often results in flash marriages.
"Surplus women"
Women who resist familial pressures and fail to marry by their late twenties risk being stigmatized as sheng nu (??), which literally means leftover women. Due to the prevalence of marriage in China, these unmarried women are often seen by potential employers as overly particular or somehow flawed. Therefore, the "surplus women" discourse further promotes gender inequality in the workplace by characterizing unmarried women as inferior due to their perceived inability to find husbands. As a result, older women frequently struggle to find jobs due to discrimination against their marital status.
In response to the issue of "surplus women", many urban parents pursue partners for their older unmarried daughters in matchmaking corners. These corners are essentially markets for marriage--parents place their daughter or son's name and details on a card for others to view while they seek out a potential match. While the success rate in matchmaking corners is low and parents often feel shame for having to resort to this style of matchmaking, many desperate parents continue to visit these corners on their children's behalf. One frequent complaint from parents of daughters is lack of quality men available across China, despite there being more sons than daughters being born. Matchmaking corners illustrate the importance of marriage and the lengths parents will go to ensure their daughters do not become "surplus women". By revealing parental anxiety, this discourse promotes pressure for women to marry young, and thus, get involved in flash marriages, even at the costs of their careers and independence, before they are too old to find a quality husband.
SK-II, a Japanese skincare brand, released an inspirational video about "leftover women". It strives to empower the leftover women to live the life they want to live, and to not let their futures be determined by what their parents want or what they have been raised to believe is the correct way to live life. The video tells the story of a few Chinese women over the age of 27 and their families, and it ends in the families of these women supporting the life decisions that the women have made. It even goes as far as to call the unmarried men of China "leftover men" in an effort to create equal blame for the state of these unmarried men and women in China. This video shows how visible this problem is in China, and that many women do not support being referred to as leftover women.
Gendered Social Mobility
Hukou system
Originally developed in the Communist era as a tool to inhibit mobility between the countryside and the cities to increase government control, the Hukou system (Household Registration System) remains influential today. Under this system, families are registered to a specific region and can only employ the services of schools and health care in that region. Since hukou is tied to the maternal line, this system disproportionately affects social mobility for women. While rural women can travel to cities for work, these migrants have no access to healthcare due to their rural registration and hence have limited ability to marry and bear children in the city. When migrant women do have children in the cities, their children have no access to schooling unless they return home, or the parents pay for their child's education out of pocket. As a result, many migrant women are often forced to return home to the countryside to have children, hence sacrificing their urban jobs and incomes as well as temporarily living apart from their husbands.
Families with urban registration also have significant advantages over families with rural registration. School age children from urban families with similar parental incomes, educations, and jobs compared to rural families generally receive two additional years of schooling at higher accredited and better funded schools. Since hukou is passed down through the maternal line, this system inhibits rural women from attaining social mobility for their children--perpetrating a cycle of both gender and rural/urban inequality.
Family role & job mobility
Various studies on gender differences in contemporary China have spotted how family concerns affect men and women differently on their job mobility. Women tend to be negatively affected by their employment by marriage and family. There is a significant gender gap in job mobility in urban China. For example, a study of job changes in urban Chins finds that women tend to experience family-oriented job changes and involuntary terminations while men tend to experience career-oriented job changes. Women are expected to prioritize their family and marriage, while men are expected to prioritize their career. The study also noted the employer discrimination on married women and less advantage of career opportunities of married women. Married women face the disadvantage based on the expectation that family obligations and burdens on married women lower their productivity and commitment to work. Another study on the urban Chinese labour market shows that the presence of young children of age under 5 in the family will negatively affect women's employment status and income, but not the men's. Women are expected to take care of children and housework. Women's family roles as wives, mothers and caregivers cause work-family conflicts and constrain their job choices. Many women then tend to seek work-family balance by choosing some family-friendly jobs, which usually are considered as "female-typical" jobs with lower paid and less opportunity of career advancement, in order to complete their expected responsibilities from both work and family. A study on durations of unemployment of women in urban China also indicates that married women have a higher laid-off rate, longer unemployment periods and lower opportunity to be re-employed when compared with married men. In the traditional Chinese view, women are expected to be the caregivers of the family while men are expected to be the breadwinners of the family. Hence, employers, which are also usually male-dominated, tend to give priority to protect men's employment and consider that it is more acceptable to lay off women as they can "take back" their responsibilities in the family after the retreat from employment.
Access to financial resources and other assets
The traditional Chinese family is patriarchal. This traditional view regulates gender roles and divisions of labour in the family, and also affect the resources allocation within the family and family business. Men are usually being favoured over women under this prevalence tradition. Men usually have the right to control valuable resources and assets, such as land, property and credit. Hence, men are able to accumulate capital and start up their business more easily than women. Moreover, in a family business, which both men and women participate in the same business, women usually act as unpaid labour for the family, while the entrepreneurial rights and opportunities are reserved for men.
Women are expected to be the caregiver of the family. In contemporary China, however, women are also expected to financially contribute to the family and earn for the family together with men, especially in rural China, where economic development is relatively poor. In many rural families, both men and women will migrant to urban areas in order to earn a living to support their rural family. A study on migrant workers in south China found that women usually spend less and send a larger proportion of the wages as remittance back to their rural family than men. Women have a double-pressure as they need to work and earn for the family and at the same time take care of the children and family. This also makes women more difficult to save and accumulate capital.
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Media
"Limit of gender"
Sexuality used to a forbidden topic in the public for decades in China. However, in contemporary China, sexuality is highly presented and consumed on the media and the commercial market. Sexuality is displayed as modernity and free discussion on this topic has celebrated as liberatory. Sexualized humour and objectifying sexed bodies, especially on young women, pervade the mass media. Such contents are considered as eye-catching to attract audiences. Yet, these will be considered as gender discrimination with a "gender lens". Without a simultaneous embrace of the concept of gender and concern on gender issues, men and women are still being presented in a highly stereotypical way. With China's rooted patriarchal culture and concepts of masculinity and femininity, men are always presented as strong, active, and rational, while women are presented in an opposite way. Moreover, the pervasive discussion on sexuality with gender inequality being invisible somehow perpetuate the commodification and marginalization of women in China.
Framing of women issues
Mainstream media are predominated by topics on marriage and private life when presenting women's issue, rather than concerning issue over gender discrimination and gender inequality. A study shows that "delaying marriage and relationship" was the most frequently discussed topics by mainstream media. Media focus on discussing women's personal lives such as marriage and romantic relationship, while concerns about gender issues such as "gender discrimination" and "traditional values declined" are diminished. Media tends to use individualistic approached to address some structural problem on social and gender issues. For example, linking issues of late marriage and work-family conflicts simply with women's personal choices, but not addressing the unequal gender stereotypical expectation on women that constrain their choices. Media fail to present a larger picture on gender issues and ignore the roots of problems. This in some way has concealed and underestimated the gender inequality issue in China.
Nüzhubo - Female casters on live-streaming sites
Nüzhubo (Chinese for 'female casters') are female performers who live-stream themselves performing on live-streaming sites, mostly by singing, dancing, video game commenting, or eating (Mukbang). "Livestream viewing has become a mainstream pastime with more than 200 active livestreaming platforms and millions of concurrent viewers every day in contemporary China." The live-streaming industry in China is dominated by female casters and the drastic growth of the industry are built on the popularity of Nüzhubo. Nüzhubo earns a living by getting virtual gifts from their followers. They are often subject to "constructions of the male gaze" by media and the public. With face fierce competition on gathering viewers and followers, most of them will try to attract viewers, especially male viewers, with their appearance. Some are also criticized by the local and foreign media for their use of sexual content as an instrument to gain popularity.
See also
- Marriage in modern China
- Chinese patriarchy
- Women in China
- Education inequality in China
- Straight man cancer
- Gender inequality
- Globalization and women in China
Selection of children by gender:
- List of Chinese administrative divisions by gender ratio
- Female infanticide in China
- Abortion in China
- Missing women of China
References
Citations
Sources
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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