Women of China

Mae Weise
GWS-220W
Dr. Adriane Brown

The rights of women in China have become more favorable in the past 25 years, but there is still much room for improvement. Women living in China undergo many forms of un-equal treatment when it comes to labor, reproduction, domestic abuse and general rights. Luckily, their country has raised concern about the gender discrimination taking place and is working towards giving them equal opportunities. Time will tell if the actions to better the women’s rights will change the traditional values that hold women back. In the meantime, women are limited to strict standards of life due to national policies to keep the population low and the lack of appreciation the nation has towards women.

China’s demographics and culture have a large impact on the changes in the past few decades. A lot of this change has to do with the country’s overall economic state, employment, and traditional values. However, the changes in Chinas national policies and demographics will result in both negative and positive effects in the future. Masculization, aging, and economic downturn are the negative implications for the future in China. On a positive note, there have been laws and regulations to improve women’s labor opportunities. According to the 2011 U.S. Census Bureau the population of china is approximately 1,336,718,000 people. Due to the large increase in the aging population, China is worried that the population of elderly will be too large for the country to finance adequate care for them. The average annual income in China is 48480 CNY, which is equaled to 14,000 US dollars as stated by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Starting in 1979, China implemented a policy called the “one child policy,” also known as China’s family planning policy. This policy was designed to limit each couple to only one child. Before this policy was enforced, China faced a time period of vast population growth as well as a decline in economic wealth between the 1950s and 1970s (Hudson, 2008). The population crisis and worries of the downward economy are what lead to China creating and enforcing this new course of action. Failure to comply with this new rule resulted in some harsh consequences to the families in China. Depending on where you live in China, women can be charged thousands of dollars for disobeying the one child policy by having multiple children.

Since this policy there have been several changes within the country. There has been a great decline in the working-class population because of the aging workforce and lack of younger people to take their place. To the government officials’ surprise, after a few years the population decrease began to level off instead of continuing to decrease. A good incentive that helped the over population in the most compromising way possible was awarding parents a certificate of honor for single-child parents. On the downside, there are a lot of not so good incentives to lower the population. Programs of forced sterilization have been obligatory for poor women in China in the past few decades (Seager, 2009). Also, officials have been known to force women into abortions and jacking up the prices for birth permits. The country does not know what to do in order to lower the population without causing a devastating future effect on economy (Seager, 2009).

There has been many tactics in China in order to not only lower the population, but also to lower the population of females in particular. Unfortunately due to this trend, there is a much higher rate of males in China. China has 32 million more boys than girls under the age of 20 (Burnett, 2010). This is partly because the invention of ultra-sounds caused parents to abort the child if they were found to be female. The female infant neglect that takes place in China also causes there to be more surviving males than females. These practices are imposed by the government in order to limit the amount of children to be born to slow down over-population. Although the growing population seems to be a big problem, their country could try to help the issue without having to discriminate and mistreat females.

Studies have shown that in the future, with such a larger amount of males than females, that violence and crime will increase dramatically (Hudson, 2008). Many men will be without a partner because of the scarcity of females their own age. Without a female spouse, men are shown to participate in much more criminal behavior (Hudson, 2008). Violence and crime may also increase in the future due to the prediction of economic downfall. The decrease of women in China’s homeland will cause the men to have more sex-trafficking into their country. An increase in women migrating to China as sex slaves will continue to feed the global abuse of women. The global cycle that may occur from the sex-ratio in China could be devastating. If women were granted the equal employment opportunities as men then the economy and lifestyle could improve for all. Also, if so many families weren’t so gender discriminant and didn’t abort babies that were girls, there would be less violence due to a more equal sex-ratio. It seems that the unequal sex-ratio will greatly affect the people and nation in coming decades.

Today, the treatment for daughters in China is mostly seen as very disgraceful. Females very seldom inherit land or anything of value from their family because it is given to the son. For a number of reasons, males are more highly valued in their country and that is something that remains a traditional value in most households. The government said to believe that females are worth less than males when it comes to household contributions (Hudson, 2008). These negative views on females will cause low self-esteem, self-worth and dignity for young women growing up in this environment.

Employment opportunities for women in rural areas of China are pretty scarce. A large part of the labor force is agriculture. However, the labor for agriculture is decreasing for women. As of 2006 over half of the non-migrant women in China participated in agricultural labor (Mu, 2010). In addition to that, the women aren’t hired for higher paying jobs because the country believes that the men are more suitable for those positions. “On average, the salary of a working woman in China is seventy-four percent less than that of a man’s wage” (Burnett, 2010). The lack of employment opportunities and low wages for women in China causes a good majority of them to be unemployed and left to do household work. In 1990, China began to have more interest on the gender discrimination and employment situations. To help the status of working women they signed a treaty called The International Labor Organization (ILO) (Burnett, 2010). Relations began to improve with international community and improving women’s rights after this treaty. During a third world conference on women in 1985, China began to acknowledge the sex discrimination in labor and made progress towards a new law. The Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women was created at this time with help from the ILO. After this took place, the government promised that this law would be fully implemented (Burnett, 2010). Although this is a big step in improving working conditions for women in China, people still argue that there is still a long way to go in terms of labor equality.

In addition to the women’s employment concerns and un-even sex ratio related to the population problem, there is the issue of domestic violence in China. According to the traditional values, the male always has a higher hierarchy of power in the family. This value remains consistent in many other foreign countries as well as here in the U.S. In contrast to many other countries, the act of violence enforced by the male to the female is something ignored and overlooked in China. According to a study done by the American Journal of public health; the frequency of lifetime intimate partner violence was 43%. The likelihood of past year intimate partner abuse was 26% (Xiao, 2005). One of the big concerns with the domestic violence that has occurred is the health effects on the women. The highest percent of partner intimacy violence were for those whose partners are in managerial or supervisory positions and who live in rural areas. Partners who drink alcohol were also shown to have a greater chance of having domestic abuse in the relationship. Women who are unemployed or financially dependent on their spouses or partners are shown to have a greater risk of domestic violence also (Xiao, 2005). These women deserve freedom, equality and independence but all factors are highly unlikely.

The number of women in China who migrate to another country for labor is highly correlated with geographical location and age group. The youngest women are the ones that migrate most often and the older they get the less likely they are to migrate (Mu, 2010). Also, the women who live in more rural locations are more likely to migrate due to the lack of labor in their area. In China, whether one is to migrate or not is a household decision and is made in accordance to the situations one is in. If one person in a village were to migrate, that would affect others in the village. One benefit that stems from the changing economy is that there are more non-farming jobs available for women who migrate. Currently, there’s a re-allocation of farm work being done in age groups. More farming work is being done by the older women and less is being done by the younger women. This is due to the fact that the older ones are more likely to be left behind, and the younger generation is the ones who are able and deciding to migrate elsewhere for work. There is a dynamic labor shift in China due to migration (Mu, 2010).

Unfortunately, women in China have great disadvantages in their home country. Women living in China undergo many forms of un-equal treatment when it comes to labor, reproduction, domestic abuse and general rights. Even with new regulations and reforms to improve the rights of women, there is still unfairness in their roles as mothers, wives, and employees. They are not granted the right to have a family with more than one child unless they can financially pay for the tremendous costs in order to do so. These women also have a very difficult time being employed, and the options of employment are extremely narrow. In addition to that, when they do become lucky enough to get employment, their wages are far less than their male co-workers. By having a partner to help financially isn’t always the best option for women either. Seeing that the percentage of women who are abused is much higher in relationships where the women is dependent on the males makes it nearly impossible for women to be both financially stable and treated with respect. Fortunately, there have been laws to protect the labor rights along with organizations that are fighting towards eliminating domestic abuse on women in China. As for now, waiting to see how heavily the laws and regulations are enforced will give us a better understanding on whether this issue can improve or if it needs further actions.


Bibliography
BURNETT, J. (2010). Women's Employment Rights in China: Creating Harmony for Women in the Workforce. Indiana Journal Of Global Legal Studies, 17(2), 289-318. doi:10.2979/GLS.2010.17.2.289
Hudson, V. M., & Den Boer, A. (2008). China's Security, China's Demographics: Aging, Masculinization, and Fertility Policy. Brown Journal Of World Affairs, 14(2), 185-200.
Mu, R. (2010). Women's labor re-allocation in rural china. College Station, Texas: World Bank's Gender Action Plan. DOI: www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/IMG/pdf/left_behind_MuvandeWalle_June2010.pdf China women left behind to farm
Seager, J. (2009). The pengiun atlas of women of the world. (4th ed., pp. 29-68). New York, NY: Penguin Books.
Unknown. (2011, June 27). U.s. census bureau. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/country.php
Xiao, X., Fengchuan, Z., O'Campo, P., Koenig, M. A., Mock, V., & Campbell, J. (2005). Prevalence of and Risk Factors for Intimate Partner Violence in China. American Journal Of Public Health, 95(1), 78-85. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2003.023978