Being a Woman in China Today: A demography of gender

Abstract

The data from ACWF-1990 referred to here is taken from ACWF-2000. 4. These surveys in the form of questionnaires were each given to representative samples of tens of thousands of women and men aged between 18 and 64 years from different provinces and milieux (urban, rural, population with experience of migration, Han/ethnic minorities, etc.). The quantitative data obtained from these was supplemented by information taken from in-depth interviews and discussion groups. For more details on the samples and methodology of these surveys, see ACWF-2000 and ACWF-2010. With no access to raw data, the results presented here were taken from the Executive reports (see above). China perspectives Special feature

Division of Labor, Gender Ideology, and Marital Satisfaction in East Asia

“…It is no surprise that East Asian men and women have different expectations of marriage than their Western counterparts (Bumpass & Choe, ). With the continued dominance of patriarchal family and societal structures that inhibit full integration of women into the economy (Attané, ; Chang & England, ), men are more likely than women to endorse the model of the male provider and to expect the wife to take care of home and children while viewing women's paid work as not important (Bumpass & Choe, ; Jones, ; Lee, Tufiş, & Alwin, ). Violation of men's desired marital roles is thus likely to result in a sour outlook on marriage (Sayer et al, ).…”

“…The party state encouraged women's employment through the implementation of equal pay legislation and generous maternity leave (Bauer, Wang, Riley, & Zhao, ; X. Zhou, ). Although the Chinese state in the post‐Maoist reform period has retrenched policies and ideologies promoting gender equality (J. Zhou, ; Zuo, ), nonetheless, most Chinese married women are in the labor force and bring wages comparable to those of their husband to the household (Attané, ; Oshio et al, ).…”

Eating disorders and representations of the role of women in China: A qualitative study

“…The particular importance of this academic pressure can be explained by the generation gap in the availability of education as well as by the particularity of only children, who must meet their parents' expectations alone and later on care for them. This particularly strong pressure on girls results from the effects of both the rapid changes in Chinese society (Rocca, ) that have led to unemployment among women (Attané, ) and of the male–female inequalities arising from China's social and cultural history.…”

“…According to data collected by Attané in the Report of the Second Sample Survey on Chinese Women's Social Status, the mean duration of women's education almost doubled over a 20‐year period: from 4.7 years in 1990 to 8.8 in 2010, progressively closing the gap with men (6.6 and 9.1 years, respectively). However, girls stopped schooling at their parents' insistence (36.8%) more often than boys (27.9%), and more parents considered education useless for girls (9.1%) than for boys (Attané, ).…”

“…Since the Chinese economic reforms in the 1980s, new opportunities have been offered, but the overall results have finally been harmful to women as the labor market became less sheltered for them, due to a more competitive and liberal employment market (Attané, ; Rocca, ). Accordingly, for example, in Shanghai, the rate of women aged 25–49 years who were working fell 30% during the 1990s, and the gender gap for income continues to widen (Attané, ).…”