CWDF Official: Poverty Impacting More Women than Men

There are more women in poverty than men in China, especially left-behind women whose husbands have left home to find better-paying jobs in cities, according to Deputy Secretary-General of China Women's Development Foundation (CWDF) Zhu Xisheng.

Zhu made the statement at the first "10.17" anti-poverty forum held in Beijing on October 16, in his presentation on the current status quo of social poverty and promoted women's development initiatives.

Zhu pointed out that there are several alarming areas of women poverty. According to Zhu, women's net income is increasingly lower than men's. Women's health is a very serious issue; more than 60 percent of rural women have ontological problems. Furthermore some areas lack clean water and this can also cause health issues. And women also  lack  opportunities to participate in social affairs and governance.

The "10.17" anti-poverty forum is the first in a series of commemorative events to mark China's first Poverty-Relief Day, and was jointly sponsored by Peking University, Tsinghua University, the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Institute of Geographic Sciences and the Natural Resources Research center of CAS, the Rural Economy Research Department of the State Council Development Research Center and the International Poverty Reduction Center in China.The theme of the forum is an important part of China's first Poverty commemoration day series of events.

Zhu stressed the importance of women's poverty alleviation work. He noted that to help a family is to help two generations. According to the annual per capita net income of farmers, the poverty line is 2,300 yuan (U.S. $375). At the end of 2013 there were 82.49 million Chinese people living in poverty, of this number, 45 million are women. Women are affected by many factors like history, culture and tradition and are often at the bottom of society.

With the deepening of national poverty alleviation and developments, and the improved development of the social security and health care systems, impoverished women's production and living conditions and social status have been greatly improved. However in some places women are still struggling.

Zhu then analyzed the reasons for these problems. First of all, many women are not well educated and their living condition is awful, which lead to poverty. In addition, family burdens are too heavy and this causes both psychological and physical pressure. More importantly, women in rural areas can only find labor work and the income is low.

Zhu stressed that helping women is a prerequisite of realizing the Chinese dream and a measure of a civilized society.

(Source: cn.chinagate.cn/news/Translated and Edited by Women of China)