Gender Equity and Women's Empowerment

In 1995, The State Council promulgated an Outline for Women's Development in China, putting forward ten major objectives for women's development in 1995-2000, involving political participation, employment, protection of labour, health care, education, poverty alleviation and rights of the person. It marked a milestone in Chinese women's development.

As early as in the 1950s, the Chinese Constitution declared that women enjoy equal rights with men in political, economic, cultural, social and family life, and the legitimate rights of women and children are protected by law. This principle is also reflected in other laws and regulations such as Marriage Law and Law on Health of Mother and Infant. The Law on Protection of Rights and Interests of Women, which came into effect in 1992, marked a new stage of legislation on women's rights.

The extent of women's participation in political affairs reflects the level of women's liberation and social progress. The number of Chinese women holding leading positions has been increasing over the past few years and those women officials are elected largely on their own merits rather than as a favor granted to women, as was customary in the past. Women accounted for 16.8% of the total number of representatives in the 15th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, 21.8% in the ninth National People's Congress, and 15.5% in the ninth Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. This does not mean, however, that women have gained an equal right of participation with their male counterparts. In fact, the rate of elected women officials is still low, and most of them serve in lower-level positions. The higher along the hierarchy, the fewer number of women officials, a phenomenon known as "pyramid-shaped distribution of women in leadership".

Women's education level, though rising constantly, still compares unfavorably with men. By 1997, women illiterates and semi-literates made up 70% of the illiterate population aged six and over. For women aged 15 and over, that rate stood at 23.24%, compared to 9.58% for men. For school enrollment, half of primary students were girls, compared with 42.5% for senior middle schools and 36.7% for colleges and above. The spring Bud Program launched by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund in 1989 has played an important role in helping school-age girls in poverty-stricken areas go to school. By 1997, the nationwide attendance rate for school-age girls reached 98.81%, compared with the average of 98.92% for both girls and boys.

Another indicator of enhanced women's status is the great number of women in the workforce. In 1997, women employees accounted for 46.5% of the workforce (696 million). However, recent economic restructuring has left many women jobless, a daunting task facing governments at all levels.

Improvements in women's status are also reflected in their increasing capacity to participate in household decision-making. Women have been liberated from arranged marriage and begun to take initiatives in family planning program. In 1997, the average of women's age at first marriage was deferred to 23.4. Total fertility rate fell to below the replacement level. With enhanced awareness of self-development, an increasing number of women in both urban and rural areas begin to participate in making decisions on major household affairs such as spending plans and education of children.

Along with the deepening of reform and the family planning program have also come problems which has aroused wide concerns.

o Laid-off women workers--By the end of 1997, registered jobless population in China reached 5.8 million, of whom 60% were women. Some of them were jobless for a long time because of unrealistic job expectations. This has posed a challenge to women's empowerment.

Measures taken include:

o Helping women reshape job outlooks through publicity.

o Developing the service sector to produce more job opportunities.

o Setting up training centers to equip women with one or more skills.

o Encouraging the development of community-based service agencies to provide more chances for them.

o Sex-ratio-- China's sex ratio at birth has been increasing since the mid-1980s. Though not unique to China, the sex ratio problem is attributable to a number of factors: limited financial support, incomplete social security system, and a strong traditional son preference. Statistically, it is also related to underreporting of baby girls and selective abortions.

Measures taken to redress this imbalance include:

o Integrating FP with reproductive health, MCH and poverty alleviation.

o A massive publicity campaign to help parents get rid of the notion of son preference.

o Establishing and improving the old age insurance system, especially in rural areas.

o Enforcing laws and regulations banning use of ultrasound scanning machines for sex identification of fetus.

Male Participation

The Program of Action adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development held in September 1994 in Cairo called for greater participation by males in family planning. In response to that call, China has taken steps to encourage men to take part in and share responsibility for child rearing, household chores and family planning. In April 1995, China sponsored a seminar on male participation in family planning.

Greater male participation will benefit women in several ways. First, it is conductive to controlling the size of families and prolong the inter-pregnancy intervals; second, it is conducive to cementing the relationship between the husband and the wife; third, it is conducive to reducing the incidence of accidental pregnancies and the risks of induced abortions; fourth, it also helps raise awareness of sexual health and reduce the incidence of STDs--STDs cause greater harm to women than to men.

Currently, China leads the world in male vasectomy technology. Statistics indicate that in 1995, 22.62 million men used vasectomy, about half of the total number of men receiving that operation in the world. In Sichuan Province, where vasectomy is most widely adopted, the rate of using vasectomy came to 27.6%.

Condom use is also on the increase. The number of users rose from 3.2 million in 1984 to 7.92 million in 1995. Currently, 3.3% of males use them nationwide, compared with the average of 3% of the developing world and 14% of the developed world. In Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, about 12% of males use condoms, but that rate is much lower in other provinces.