China’s rapid socio-economic development has achieved remarkable equalizing conditions between men and women in the aspects of health, education and labor force participation, but the glass ceiling phenomenon has become more prominent. The book develops a cross-disciplinary paradigm, with economics at its core, to better understand gender in China and women in management in the Chinese business context. The theoretical perspective integrates the knowledge and evidence from cognate disciplinary strands, such as economics, sociology, management studies, and the Chinese literature, into one unified framework. In-depth interviews with managers in China’s largest enterprises complement the theoretical perspective with rich empirical details to examine women’s managerial experiences and career choices. The book’s argument sheds light on the power of stereotypes that specify women’s roles in the family, organization, and society. It shows that understanding the socio-psychological and organizational dynamics of stereotyping in the Chinese context, as well as how Chinese women make career decisions, recognizing and deploying these expectations, provides new perspectives on the underrepresentation of women among business leaders in China. The book offers multi-disciplinary evidence on the economics of gender in China that is highly relevant for gender studies in general, and across a number of subject areas, and it can be used in any setting as an introductory reference.

This open access book investigates female employment and the gender gap in the labor market and households during China’s economic transition period. It provides the reader with academic evidence for understanding the mechanism of female labor force participation, the determinants of the gender gap in the labor market, and the impact of policy transformation on women’s wages and employment in China from an economics perspective. The main content of this book includes three parts―women’s family responsibilities and women’s labor supply (child care, parent care, and women’s employment), the gender gap in the labor market and society (gender gaps in wages, Communist Party membership, and participation in social activity), and the impacts of policy transformation on women’s wages and employment (the social security system and the educational expansion policy on women’s wages and employment) in China. This book provides academic evidence about these issues based on economics theories and econometric analysis methods using many kinds of long-term Chinese national survey data. This book is highly recommended to readers who are interested in up-to-date and in-depth empirical studies of the gender gap and women’s employment in China during the economic transition period. This book is of interest to various groups such as readers who are interested in the Chinese economy, policymakers, and scholars with econometric analysis backgrounds.

China’s joining the World Trade Organization at the end of 2001 signifies a milestone in the country’s global integration after two decades of economic reforms that have fundamentally transformed the economic organization of China. This collection seeks to identify the gendered implications within China of the country’s transition from socialism to a market economy and its opening up to international trade and investment. The changes have created greater wealth for some, while at the same time, serious gender, class, ethnic, and regional disparities have also emerged. Drawing from historical, analytical, and policy-oriented work, the essays in this collection explore women’s well-being relative to men’s in rural and urban China by looking at land rights, labor-market status and labor rights, household decision-making, health, the representation of women in advertising and beauty pageants. This book was previously published as a special issue of the journal, Feminist Economics, the official journal of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE). All contributions have been subjected to the journal's rigorous peer review process and comply with the journal's editorial policies, as overseen by the editor, Diana Strassmann, and the journal's editorial team, including the associate editors, the editorial board, numerous volunteer reviewers, and the journal's in-house editorial staff and freelance style editors. The special issue and book have been made possible by the generous financial support of Rice University and the Ford Foundation-Beijing.

This book examines the dynamics of power within the families of married women who have migrated from rural areas to China's Dalian Economic Zone. Engaging the question of whether waged work gives women power in their families, this ethnographic study finds that women do indeed use their new positions and urban status to negotiate their family status. However, women use these new resources not necessarily to promote their own individual liberation, but rather to strengthen their contribution as wives and, especially, as mothers. Thus, this new modernity provides a space for the re-inscribing of traditional roles, even as it may work to give women new-found power within their families. How and why this process occurs is related to the dual inequalities these women face as rural migrants and as women.

This volume will look into some macro factors that have an impact on gender conceptualizations in China. First, China is a highly-centralized state with a one-party political system that is also an authoritarian strongman regime. Thus, policies (including those related to gender) from the center are promulgated centripetally to provinces, cities, towns, villages, and local areas effectively.In terms of policy-making, the Chinese government noted that they have strengthened the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) guide for women's work, enacted/upgraded rights protection law in the National People's Congress (NPC), actualized mechanisms for women's cause in the Chinese People's Political Conservative Conference (CPPCC), streamlined work systems for effective implementation of national gender equality policies, and augmented the Women's Federation as an intermediary between the Communist Party of China (CPC), the state, and all Chinese women.As productive forces, Chinese women in the socialist era were exemplary models of mothers and career women who treated family life and work as equally important priorities. They were upper middle class to high net worth individuals who showed their successes in juggling both as objects of moral suasion for other Chinese women in state-led publicity. Some of them were touted by the state as ideal modern Chinese women in state media, moral suasion campaigns, and/or propaganda.

This paper examines gender inequality in the context of structural transformation and rebalancing in China. We document declining women's relative wages and labor force participation in China during the last two decades, despite rapid growth and expansion of the service sector. Using household data, we provide evidence consistent with a U-shaped relationship between economic development and women's labor market outcomes. Using a model of structural transformation, we show that labor market barriers for women have increased over time. Model counterfactuals suggest that removing these barriers and increasing service sector productivity can boost both gender equality and economic growth in China.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) has made advances in narrowing gender gaps in its labor market. It has one of the highest female labor force participation rates in Asia and the Pacific at around 64% in 2013, and one of the narrowest earnings gender gaps. This study investigates how women are faring in the transition to the PRC's new growth model, and what can be done to promote women's participation. It shows how the PRC is undergoing multiple transitions that have implications for gender equality and work. For example, during the market transition, gender wage gaps and gender wage discrimination increased, reaching 33% in urban areas and 44% in rural areas. Find out how evidenced-based gender analysis can foster gender responsive policy approaches to promote women's equality in the labor market.

This wide-ranging and interdisciplinary collection brings together scholars from China and the West to examine the many dimensions of debate around gender issues in contemporary China. The experiences of women in education, employment, marriage and the family, in rural and urban areas are analysed and assessed.

Chapter1 Introduction Part I Women's Family Responsibilities and Labor Supply in China Chapter2 Market Wages, Child Care, and Labor Supply of Married Women in China Chapter3 Parent Care and Middle-aged Women's Employment Part II The Gender Gap in China s 'Labor Market and Society Chapter4 Ownership Sectors and the Gender Wage Gap Chapter5 The Gender Gap of Communist Party Membership Chapter6 The Gender Gap of Social Participation Activity Part III Impact of Policy on Women's Labor Market Outcomes in China Chapter7 The Impact of Higher Education Expansion Policy on the Wages of Female College Graduates Chapter8 The Impact of the New Rural Pension Scheme on the Labor Supply of Intra-Household Prime-age Women in Rural China