Women and Economy

 July 27, 2015

(A) Efforts and Progress

1. The institutional guarantee for women's economic rights has been intensified

Over the past five years, the central government and competent authorities have developed laws, regulations and policies to protect women's economic rights and improve their economic status. Local governments have also developed corresponding regulations and policies to safeguard women's economic rights. The Social Insurance Law of the People's Republic of China (2011), the Regulations Concerning the Labor Protection of Female Employees (2012) and the Code of Occupational Disease Prevention and Control amended in 2011 provide legal guarantee for safeguarding women's economic rights. The Outline of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2011-2015) and the Program for the Development of Chinese Women (2011-2020) also play an important role in safeguarding women's economic rights. The Decision of the CCCPC on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China requires to "eliminate all institutional barriers and employment discrimination affecting equal employment in terms of residence registration, industry, identity, gender and other factors," indicating the great importance CPC attached to equal employment rights for both men and women. In the Notice of Securing the Employment of College Graduates Nationwide issued by the State Council in 2013 (SC No.35 [2013]), the Notice No.5 [2013] issued by the Teaching Division under the Ministry of Education and the Notice No.41 issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, new provisions were added to ban the gender-biased requirements for job seekers so as to protect women's right to equal employment. The Outline of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2011-2015) and the Program for the Development of Chinese Women (2011-2020) also play an important role in securing women's economic rights. For instance, the Program for the Development of Chinese Women (2011-2020) sets out a goal "to ensure women's equal access to and ownership of land contracting and management rights in the rural areas." The Ministry of Agriculture, the ACWF and other departments have attached great importance to land ownership confirmation. To ensure women's access to land contracting and management rights and interests via confirmation registry, the Ministry of Agriculture has written into the relevant documents that the registration leading group should include women's federation cadres, women landowners' names should be recorded on the land register form and the confirmation warrant with the corresponding rights empowered. The impact of marital changes on women should also be considered when determining the eligibility of village group members. The Opinions on the promotion of Women Worker Organizations in Trade Unions and Full Coverage of Special Collective Contract to Protect the Rights and Interests of Female Employees issued by the ACFTU in 2011 also strengthened the protection of labor rights and interests of female employees.

2. Multi-agency cooperation to improve women's employment and entrepreneurship

Government departments have taken the initiative to ally with NGOs to provide funding, training and other related support for women's development. The MOHRSS, the Ministry of Health, the ACWF, the ACFTU and other organizations have jointly carried out a competition of innovative job skills for female employees. And also, by establishing demonstrative training schools in various provinces and cities, the ACFTU has advanced employment and skills training of female employees. During the past five years, 11.105 million and 11.914 million female employees have seen their academic and technical titles promoted respectively . The ACWF in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other 10 ministries launched an initiative called "Two Learns and Two Competes" (learn knowledge and skills and compete for performance and contribution) among rural women, and as of March 2013, a total of 3,268 groups and 13,440 individuals were awarded in recognition of their excellent performance.

To promote women's competence in employment and entrepreneurship, the MOF, the MHRSS, the PBOC and the ACWF jointly released a financial discount policy for guaranteed microfinance targeted at women at grassroots level, providing over 3 million women with guaranteed small loans as the startup capital as of October 2013, indirectly creating job opportunities for nearly 10 million women . In 2011, the ACWF established the All-China Women Hand-knitting Association, encouraging large numbers of women to work at home by flexible schedule or get a job nearby, which has become a livelihood project to relieve employment stress on urban and rural women. According to incomplete statistics, there are currently more than 5,000 bases producing women's hand-woven crafts nationwide, with nearly 10 million women in over 50,000 communities and villages engaged in the hand-weaving business . And also, the ACWF in conjunction with the China Federation of Persons with Disabilities has created new job opportunities for women, organized skills training for them, hosted handcraft skill competitions and taken other measures to promote the employment of women with disabilities. In 2014, the two departments jointly developed the Program for Advancing the Employment and Entrepreneurship of Disabled Women by Developing the Handicrafts Business, in an effort to provide free skills training for 15,000 women with disabilities. In the past few years, through various kinds of training at all levels, more than 100 million rural women have mastered 1-2 new agricultural skills , thus becoming the main force actively involved in the development of modern agriculture and rural economy, and contributing a lot to the building of a new socialist countryside.

From 2009 to 2014, the ACWF jointly with the Ministry of Education, the MHRSS and the China Association of Women Entrepreneurs successively launched the "Mentoring Action for Female College Graduates in Venture Creation", the "Action to Support Female College Graduates in Venture Creation" and, the "Action to Boost Female College Graduates in Venture Creation", in an effort to build up a service platform and create a social context to encourage the employment and entrepreneurship for female college students.

As a bridge connecting women entrepreneurs and the society, the CAWE deal with women entrepreneurs in a modernized manner, informing them of international and domestic economic conditions through training while promoting their docking and cooperation with the government, financial institutions and foreign peers for their business development. The group of women entrepreneurs continues to develop with a growing leadership and voice, extending beyond the business services industry to reach the male-dominated fields of Internet and science and technology. From a global perspective, self-made women entrepreneurs from China once occupied half of the listed names in Forbes . In some businesses established by women entrepreneurs, the proportion of female workers remain high, even up to over 95 percent, playing a leading role in driving up women's employment rate.

3. More efforts have been made to ensure women's income increase and social insurance

With the growth of the national economy and the improvement in women's employability and entrepreneurship, women's income is also increasing on an ongoing basis. The third session of Chinese women's social status survey showed that nearly two-thirds of married women (64.4 percent) possessed deposits in their own names, a considerable rise compared with the figure in 2000 (41.5 percent); gender differences were also significantly reduced.

At the same time, efforts have been increasingly made to enhance social insurance for women. According to the data from the third session of Chinese women's social status survey, 73.3 percent and 87.6 percent of urban women residents enjoyed social pension and social health insurance respectively, and 95.5 percent of rural women residents enjoyed social health insurance. And also, 2014 saw the roll-out of a unified basic old-age insurance scheme for both urban and rural residents across the country, improving the benefits for females regarding the old-age security.The Measures for Maternity Insurance (Draft Exposure 2012) include all employees signing labor contracts with their employers in the Chinese territory into the coverage of maternity insurance. Throughout 2013, the number of people engaged in maternity insurance reached 163.92 million across China, with 5.22 million enjoying the benefits, an increase of 3.11 million passengers over 2010, of which per capita fertility benefits reached 13,455 yuan, up 4,896 yuan over 2009, and per capita maternity medical expenses and maternity subsidies accounted for 3,857 yuan and 11,962 yuan respectively, an increase of 260 yuan and 1,582 yuan over 2012.

(B) Gaps and Challenges

1. Laws and policies are not yet well-established

Women's status and the different needs between genders have not been taken into account prior to the introduction of some laws and policies. In the State Council's Document No.104 issued in 1978, there are provisions of different retirement ages for men and women, causing a negative impact on women's labor rights, career development and post-retirement life. In the Regulations Concerning the Labor Protection of Female Employees issued in 2012, female workers are not allowed to engage in underground mining operations, which is not conducive to the overall development of women workers.

2. There is a lack of gender-disaggregated statistics

Many indicators related to women's development and gender equality lack gender-disaggregated data. Part of the basic data (such as that on entrepreneurs) in the economic field was collected regardless of gender, hindering in-depth study of the female segment. Gender-disaggregated data of the impoverished population only covered the areas under surveillance, insufficient to act as a reference for national policy-making. In the statistical surveillance of the Program for the Development of Chinese Women (2011-2020), some indicators are not consistent with the objectives, failing to fully reflect the situation of women's development and gender equality. Gender-disaggregated unemployment and income data based on labor force survey were not satisfactorily shared in the actual work. Due to census and statistics reform over the past few years, the China Labor Statistical Yearbook no longer include the gender-disaggregated data on technical professionals, while the relevant data in the China Statistical Yearbook of Science and Technology only covered statistics under the public economy sector, forming a new statistical gender gap, which may hinder the whole community from understanding the barriers against women's development in these areas .

3. Work-family conflict is still unsolved

Traditionally, women are responsible for most or all of the housework, committed to caring for the elderly, the sick and the young, which is counterproductive for them to solve work-family conflict. Housework is not yet a highly social labor due to inadequate public services, which has increased women's nursery burden; and reduced affordability and accessibility of child nursery due to a shortage of public kindergartens has also to some extent induced women's work-family conflict. By the end of 2013, over 30 percent of young children in the preschool years were denied by nurseries , increasing the child care burden of women. Uneven distribution of kindergarten resources, particularly the lagging development of nursery houses, has also to a certain extent resulted in work-family conflict for women with young children, whose employment rate has dropped. According to the data from the third session of Chinese women's social status survey, the employment rate of urban women aged 18-29 with a child aged 0-6 (64.2 percent) was 8.4 percentage points lower than that of unmarried females or married women without any kid. 83.3 percent of unemployed women wanted to work but failed because they have to take care of children under 3 years, which affected their employment opportunities.

(C) Suggestions in Response

1. Continued efforts should be made to improve legislation and policy measures

Operational Implementation Rules for the Employment Promotion Law should be enacted as soon as possible, with clearly defined discrimination in employment and the judgment criteria as well as specific provisions of the liabilities for employers violating the law. The role of the government in regulating gender discrimination on the labor market should be clarified, with infringements subject to harsher disciplines and penalties . Gender evaluation mechanisms for policies and regulations should be established on an extensive basis, with specialized gender assessment body created to assess the existing laws and regulations and policy arrangements as well as to recommend modifications. Meanwhile, when introducing laws, developing policy and preparing plans to practice the rule of law and implement the basic state policy of gender equality, we should translate the gender research results into a real guarantee on gender equality.

2. Gender-disaggregated statistical indicators should be refined

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) should include gender-based data into its mandate under the Statistics Law, carry out gender statistics training within its own system and the relevant government departments, and strengthen review of changes to gender statistical indicators adopted by the above bodies. Dedicated departments to guide and coordinate gender statistics should be assigned to collect and consolidate gender-disaggregated data, forming evaluation indicators that can reflect gender equality and women's development. Improved gender-based statistics should be released and published to enhance shared information in this regard, ensuring ongoing progress in gender-disaggregated statistics.

3. Social support should be provided for the employment of women with family burdens 

Domestic services should be boosted to promote social housework. Government regulation should be consolidated to meet the needs of old-age services and alleviate the burden of family caregivers, thus reducing work-family conflict for women. Meanwhile, the government should also stress the public welfare nature in constructing and reconstructing nurseries and kindergartens, and expand the coverage of public as well as inclusive private kindergartens. The time for child shuttle should be adapted to the timetable of employees, letting nurseries and kindergartens play a supportive role in women's employment. Well-managed services and fees of nurseries and kindergartens are also necessary to create a regulated childcare market .

(Women of China)

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