The Issue of Gender Inequality in China

Nowadays, gender inequality is a big problem for the hole world, many place have a big gender inequality. The problem have very bad influence for the world and also for those people who be traded differently. Besides, the gender inequality need to be eliminate. China, like other countries, suffers from gender inequality, which has become increasingly serious since the 21st century for some reasons. In order to prevent this from getting worse, the Chinese government has promulgated many relevant laws and policies to guarantee the rights of women.

The gender inequality in China generates by many different reasons, so how the gender inequality forms? China start to have gender inequality from last century, every thing can generated the gender inequality. But in the 21 century, there are something that affect the gender inequality hard, and some of them are the main reason that form the gender inequality. The first main reason that the one child policy start in 1980. Family planning is a basic state policy of the People’s Republic of China and one child policy was included. It was established as a basic state policy in September 1982 and written into the constitution in December of the same year. Main content and purpose are: advocate late marriage, late childbirth, little give birth to, eugenic, control population in a planned way thereby. Since its formulation, family planning, a basic national policy, has played a positive role in China’s population and development, but it has also brought about the aging of the population. By the early 21st century, China’s family planning policy had made some adjustments. As the first batch of only children born in the 1980s have reached the marriageable age, the family planning policy has been somewhat relaxed in many regions, especially those with more developed economies. Because of the one-child policy, all parents can only have one child, and some parents in poor areas are no exception. These parents in poor areas cannot afford to have a second child, but they generally want a boy because he can help the family better, which leads to a very bad situation. The phenomenon is that parents will check whether the child is male or female when they are pregnant, and if they find out if it is a girl, they will have a miscarriage. This is also a major cause of the current imbalance between the male and female population in China. The second reason that form the gender inequality is a traditional concept in China, it’s called Son preference. It means that boys and man always better than the girls and women. This traditional concept has been spread in China for a long time, because in ancient times, important things were done by men, and women were like a tool, only used to assist men. This creates the idea that women can’t do better than men. This traditional concept still exists in some rural areas and some feudal places.

What about the gender inequality in China now? In some underdeveloped counties, towns and villages, men and women have significantly different levels of higher education, and the proportion of men receiving higher education is significantly higher than that of women, which is also the impact of traditional concepts on women. As a Chinese saying goes, ‘a girl should get married in the end. ‘This is a typical traditional idea of favoring sons over daughters, which leads to a large number of women with low education level and also improves the illiteracy rate in China. Gender inequality also happen in the work place. Women are still faced with gender bias, and this is also the case in our workplaces. Sure, many companies are really trying hard to promote equality and diversity, but women are still dominating lower-paying entry-level and administrative positions while men are continuing to hold positions at the management and executive level. It is clear that gender inequality is hurting our companies’ performances. More and more women have come to astonishing achievements over the past decades, shattering gender-related barriers in just about every aspect of our lives. These days, more and more young women choose a career in a traditionally male-dominated sector such as technology, engineering, business, or trades. More women are running for public or political office than ever before, and more and more women are setting up their own business or get educated in fields like aviation or aerospace. Let’s also hope that after the upcoming mid-terms we’ll see many more women elected to the house. Wouldn’t that be fantastic? No longer have young women to choose between family and marriage or a high-powered career. Women of today are wanting it all, just like counterparts from the other sex. At the same time, we can see only a few succeed in reaching their goals, just a few. So while more and more women are flooding into the employment market and breaking down all sorts of gender barriers, they continue to be less or under-represented in management, executive, or other senior positions. We see these this sort of differences also in sports. This all happens despite the fact that numerous studies have shown that companies will perform far better when well-educated women become part of their management and executive teams. 

Because the concept and phenomenon of gender inequality have a great impact on China’s society and development, the Chinese government has made changes. In order to stop the growing of gender inequality, Chinese government published many laws and polices to protect the women right. In the 1990s, China embarked on enacting and revising a series of laws to promote gender equality, including the Marriage Law, the Population and Family Planning Law, the Law on Rural Land Contracting, and the Law and Protection of Rights and Interests of Women. These all helped raise the public awareness of women’ rights. In August 2005, the State Council Information Office published a white paper entitled ‘Gender Equality and Women’ Development. This further emphasized the importance of women’ rights, including participation in decision-making, access to education, and marital rights. As a result, gender equality in China has been enhanced. In 2005, in China, 6.72% of men and 5.63% of women received post-secondary education. Recent statistical evidence also reveals women earned 70% of what men earned in China from 2010 to 2012. On 28th June 2012, The Standing Committee of the Fifth People’s Congress of Shen Zhen Municipality passed the “Regulation of Shen Zhen Special Economic Zone on the Promotion of Gender Equity”. This legally guarantees and safeguards gender equality at work and at home. For example, any employers who establish gender requirements for recruitment would be fined from RMB 3,000 to RMB 30,000. Also, any domestic abusers can be sentenced to imprisonment. Notwithstanding this tremendous progress, the hidden Confucian patriarchy remains significant, with household responsibilities often falling onto the shoulders of Chinese women. It is undeniable that deep-rooted patriarchal Confucianism still plays a significant role in today’s Chinese communities. However, the gender gap has considerably narrowed in those regions which enjoy better access to education. This could predominantly be ascribed to the influx of western individualism, where better-educated women have developed their reluctance to act as a subordinate to men. These women and Chinese authorities have increasingly been aware of the importance of gender equality. While Confucianism still enjoys noteworthy respect in Chinese communities, its patriarchal emphasis has been lessened, especially in recent decades. 

In the 21st century, this is to be welcomed, but there is much work still to do. Another important measure to protect women’s rights is to open the two-child policy. There are many benefits that the two child policy can bring to the society. Firstly, at present, the imbalance of male and female ratio in our country is serious, which is caused by the long-term conservative traditional concepts such as preference for sons over daughters. Many parents choose to have one child at a time, which makes the gender imbalance worse.If the ‘two-child policy’ is opened, it is believed that this problem can be alleviated. Secondly, in recent years, China’s fertility rate has decreased and the aging and aging population is serious, which has caused a great impact on the financial sustainability of the social security system. Opening up the two-child policy can significantly ease the aging of the population and help reduce the country’s financial burden and social risks.

With these laws and policies to protect women’ rights, the current gender inequality is less and less, China’s society is also developing in a good direction, the gap between men and women is getting smaller and the status of women is getting higher. Gender inequality is a wrong idea left over from the old society. We should abandon these wrong ideas and make the society more equal and harmonious.

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