Gender equality in China: progress,

challenges, and future strategy

Zheng, Zhenzhen

Institute of Population and Labor Economics

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

2 March 2014 Mpumalanga, South Africa

Outline

• Promoting gender equality in China: a review

• Progress and current status

– Efforts for a supportive policy and social environment

– Health

– Education

– Economic participation

– Political participation

• Gaps and challenges

• National strategies

Promoting gender equality in China: a review

• 1949-1956: Social movement with laws clearly define women’s equal rights

– The establish of All China Women’s Federation

– The constitution, marriage law, labor protection law

– Efforts to reduce maternal and infant death

• 1957-1965: promoting women’s economic participation

• 1966-1976:

• 1977-1990: women’s role in reform and opening-up

• 1990- 2000: more policies issued and more actions taken

– 1992: Law on the protection of rights and interests of women

– 1993: National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council

– 1995: the first Program for the Development of Chinese Women (1995-2000)

Important progress in the 21st century

• Gender equality as a key national policy of social

development, development of supportive policies

– Amendment of Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of

Women: emphasized anti-gender discrimination and legal

responsibility

– Emphasize women’s rights protection and gender equity in related

laws and regulations

– Program for the Development of Chinese Women (2001-2010)

and (2011-2020), monitor and evaluation

• Strengthen national system to promote gender equality in

all levels and all sectors

– The coordination ministries/departments of NWCCW expended

from 17 to 33

– Every province, city, and county has a coordinated work

committee

Important progress in the 21st century

• Gender mainstreaming and gender equality advocacy for a

more supportive social-cultural environment

– High rank advocacy

– Collaborating with media, more news and reports to advocate

– The role of CSOs: monitor media on stereotype or discriminative

reports about women, analysis and intervention

– More international collaboration, communication and exchange

• Key projects

– Fight against gender-based violence: change common views from

ignorance to pay attention, gender sensitive and anti gender-based

domestic violence training in legal system and health system,

preparation for development of law

– “Care for girls” Campaign: promote non-discriminating concepts to

change the traditional views of weighting more on boys than girls,

call for awareness on harmful practices that discriminate girls, and

raising girls’ status in a family

Health: progress and current status

Life expectancy

at birth

Source: census data 69.3

70.5

73.3

75.3

77.4

65

70

75

80

1981 1990 2000 2005 2010Year

Life

exp

ecta

ncy

at b

irth

Total Men Women

Health insurance

coverage (%)

Source: The report of

the Third Wave

Survey on the Social

Status of Women in

China, 2010 88.0

87.6

95.6

95.0

0 20 40 60 80 100

Men,urban

Women,urban

Men,rural

Women,rural

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

15 20 25 30 35 40 45

High school

College

University

Post-graduate

Education: progress and current status

• Special efforts to keep girls in school

• Average years of schooling in 2010: women 8.4, men 9.2

• To reach the MDG goal of “eliminating gender disparities

at all levels of education”: sex ratio by education, 2010 census

Labor participation: progress and current status

• Women make 46% of employed labor

• More women work in education, culture, health, sports,

commercial and retail, and service

• An increasing number of women work in new

emerging and high-tech industry

• Training for women provided by government and

women’s organizations

• Improvement in occupational protection for women

– A high coverage of maternal insurance for urban employees,

from 26% in 2000 to 95% in 2010

– More enterprises implemented “Regulation on Occupational

Protection of Women Employees”, from 34.9% in 2005 to

54.9% in 2010

Current status: findings from the Third Wave

Survey on the Social Status of Women (2010)

• Labor participation: 71.1% women aged 18-64

• Distribution by industry: 45.3% primary, 14.5% secondary,

40.2% tertiary

• Average annual income to that of men: 67.3% in urban,

56.0% in rural

• 9.0% women and 14.0% men received loans for

production and business; among them 37.3% women and

36.9% men receiving small loans including government-

subsidized interest payments

More social interventions

• Poverty alleviation with special target in less developed

rural areas on

– Mothers of poor families (Happiness Project);

– Families only have daughters;

– Girls drop out from school (Spring Bud Project);

– Families with family member has health problems;

– Families in difficult natural settings or suffered from natural

disasters.

• Activities also carried out by non-governmental

organizations (such as family planning associations,

women’s organizations, and others)

• Migration from rural to urban: a way to poverty alleviation

and human capital building

Political participation

• Women representatives in National People’s Congress

(2013): 23.4%

• Women in community leadership (2010): 49.6% in urban,

21.4% in rural (a significant increase than a decade earlier)

Findings from the Survey on the Social Status of Women

(2010)

• 54.1% have been involved in democratic supervision

• 18.3% take the initiative to raise suggestions in work place

or in communities

• Over the last five years, 83.6% rural women have

participated in village committee elections, and

– 70.4% reported that they taken the elections seriously and “tried

their best to know the candidates well before voting”

Gaps and challenges

• Imbalanced sex ratio at birth: a consequence of boy preference as fertility declines, reflecting gender in-equality and discrimination against women and girls in a society in variety of forms

• From view of human resource to evaluate women’s role – There are still some gender discrimination in labor market

– Women’s income is lower

– The official retire age of women staff is 5 years earlier

– The proportion of women in decision making and management is still low, and more men in leading position in higher rank

– Promotion of men is faster than women

• Consequences of fast demographic change – The fast changes in population and family structure

– The challenge in balancing work and life for working women

– The traditional gender role: 61.6% men and 54.8% women agreed that “men are better at social issues and women are better at family issues” ( 2010 survey)

• Further gender mainstreaming in all areas; more resource investment; improve gendered statistics, analysis, and evaluation

• Eliminate gender in-equality, to address the root causes of

sex ratio imbalance problem, to improve the supportive

social and policy environment for development of women

and girls

• To promote women’s participation in decision making and

promote in high-rank position by more training and

improved policy

• Pay attention to possible consequences of demographic

change to women, be aware potential gender inequality

while response to demographic changes

National strategies for the next decade

Implementation, Monitor and evaluation on the major

indicators and strategies on women in

• Health

• Education

• Economy

• Decision making and management

• Social welfare

• Environment

• Legal protection

The Program for the Development of

Chinese Women (2011-2020)

Thank you