Chinese Women Workplace Status - Research Paper Example

Chinese Women Workplace Status Although China seems to be performing well in the aspect of gender equality at the international level, much of this is hullabaloo as a more critical analysis shows otherwise. The United nations rate China as position 35 out of 142 in the gender inequality index. The country has been on zigzag trajectory in terms of the reforms to gender equality. In the traditional communist China, gender equality was a focal point and the role of both sexes was appreciated in the economic development of the country. However, in the late 1990’s and the early 2000’s as China embarked on economic reforms, much of the progress made gender reforms was literally thrown to the dogs. It was after these economic reforms that gender inequality in China started to increase posing a major economic and social problem in the country. The place of women in the workplaces has surely changed band improved for the better. More women are now employed in sectors that were traditionally perceived to be for men. However, despite these improvements, enough has not been achieved due to the negative traditions that China holds on to. The reasons for the lack of change in Chinese women workplace status can be rightly attributed to the negative traditions that Chinese people practiced. The common notion when it comes to gender inequality is that women are the victims and men the usual culprits. The case is the same in China as it is in the other parts of the world. Nevertheless, it is not to be assumed that the gender inequality has been orchestrated by the men alone. In fact, theorists will argue that women have played the biggest part in as much as they are the victims. It is a known fact that women are their own enemies when it to comes to gender reforms. In the film Go Lala Go, the progress of a secretary up the corporate ladder is faced with obstacles from a fellow woman – an ex-lover of the company’s sales director (Jinglei). In traditional China, the average woman was more comfortable being a family private person than being a social person. Despite the Constitution of China proclaiming equal rights for both women and men, the same was not true in practice. While the laws provided that women and men be paid equal wages for the similar jobs, this was not true in practice. The dominant occupational and industrial segregation by sex meant that gender inequality in pay was not realized in China’s workforce. The Constitutional proclamations remained just a mere dream that seemed insurmountable in its achievement. In the planned economies, most companies segregated their jobs into two groups – primary and secondary jobs. The men were much more likely to be offered the better rewarding primary jobs while their female counterparts got the secondary jobs. These traditions have been much entrenched and are still visible in the current Chinese workforce where jobs are divided based on the gender suitability of the people who can perform them. In effect, most of the men end up getting the better paying jobs while the modern woman has to do with the poorly paid simple jobs. It is important at this point to make the explanation that this situation is not reserved for China alone but is a universal problem that eats away the progress made in development. In the current China, women have lower income levels owing to the precedent that was set by China’s traditions of giving poor jobs to the women (Entwisle, pp. 74). In the current Chinese labor market, women are accorded lower levels of occupation. This scenario has largely been brought about by the feminization of the informal sector where by informal jobs are reserved for the women and the formal ones are an automatic reserve for the men. In addition, the occupations that are majorly dominated by women have been devalued leading to lower earnings. Past studies of the Chinese labor market have shown that female dominated enterprises attract a relatively lower wage than those dominated by men. It is also true that men are much more likely to get blue collar and white collar jobs while women are employed as informal laborers. For example, in the early 1990s the increase in the number of women in the sales and marketing sector was attributed to the downward trend. These perceptions of women can be traced back to ancient China when women were thought of as the weaker sex and were accorded seemingly easier roles. It appears therefore, that these traditions have sufficed in the wake of the modern China (Entwisle, pp. 114). Further, the current labor market in china has a high likelihood of having forced early retirements for women while their male counterparts are allowed to work past their retirement ages. In modern China, women have a higher proportion of laid-off than the men. The current trends mean that the women have a lower job security and their chances of maintain employment are much lower than those of men. The law does not help in bridging this anomaly and it has been quoted as a main driver of this problem. For example, the retirement age for women is five years lower than that of men and this means that women are in the job market for a much lower period than the male counterparts. The law has therefore encouraged companies to even set their internal retirement ages with margins of up to five years lower. The fact that the government has allowed the companies to set their internal retirement ages at levels lower the government retirement age has further aggravated the problem of women unemployment and underemployment. Because of the general assumption that women are lazier than the males, the companies have the habit of laying off the female workers earlier than the men. The modern Chinese labor force is crippled with the glaring menace of discrimination in hiring of workers both at the top and low levels of the employment ladder. The market reforms that were initiated in the 1990s where gender discrimination was a widespread practice are largely to blame for the current trend (Zang, pp. 85). There was explicit gender discrimination against women who were looking for jobs. Under this category of discrimination, the women were out rightly made aware that the jobs on offer were not designed for them. More efficient, however, was the use of hidden discrimination to bar women from accessing certain jobs. The management or the decision makers would implement a hidden preference for male workers therefore disqualifying most of the women regardless of their skill proficiency or expertise in the concerned field. Gender discrimination can also be hidden under the auspices of age where a limit is put to bar the majority of women applicants. The managers could, for example, limit the age of women applicants while relaxing the age limit for men. This is based on the traditional assumptions that men retain their physicality even with old age while women tend to grow weaker. Women past the age of 40 are most affected by this type of discrimination in modern China. While significant gains have been made to correct the gender inequality in China, enough has not been achieved in this regard (Jinglei). Traditional views on women and men and their different roles are largely to blame for the negativity accorded to women workers. While it may not be easy to change the traditions of a people, something can be done to bridge this anomaly. The Chinese government should invest more in research and sensitization efforts to change the perceptions of the average Chinese person. Clearly, the law alone cannot tackle the problem of gender inequality. Works cited Entwisle, Barbara. 2000. Re-drawing Boundaries Work, Households, and Gender in China. Berkeley: U of California. Print. Jinglei, Xu. 2010. Go Lala Go. Web. 11 May 2015. Zang, Xiaowei. 2012. Islam, Family Life, and Gender Inequality in Urban China. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Print. Read More