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Chinese women hold up half of the sky
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-25 08:41

Women and the economy

The State has made the guarantee of equal employment opportunities between women and men and the sharing of economic resources and results of social development the top priority for the advancement of gender equality and the development of women, and has worked out and adopted a series of policies and measures to ensure that women can equally participate in economic development, enjoy equal access to economic resources and effective services, enhance their self-development ability and improve their social and economic status.

Over the past few years, the Chinese Government has formulated and carried out supportive policies to encourage women to start businesses on their own initiative, and give them preferential treatment when granting employment training subsidies and small-sum guaranteed loans and conducting tax reduction and exemption. In the meantime, governments at all levels have adopted many favourable policies toward women, such as creating public-welfare jobs, opening employment service centres, sponsoring special recruitment activities and vocational training courses, monitoring sex discrimination against women in employment and helping women, especially laid-off women, to find new jobs.

Over the past few years, the tertiary industry has become the main channel for providing jobs to women, and an increasing number of women are entering the computer, communications, finance and insurance and other high- and new-tech industries, thus becoming an important force in these fields. At present, women owners of small and medium-sized enterprises account for about 20 per cent of the national total number of entrepreneurs, and 60 per cent of them have emerged in the past decade. By the end of 2004, women accounted for 43.6 per cent of the total number of professionals and technicians in State-owned enterprises and institutions nationwide, up 6.3 percentage points over the 37.3 per cent of 1995, among whom, the number of senior and intermediate-level women professionals and technicians rose from 20.1 per cent and 33.4 per cent to 30.5 per cent and 42 per cent respectively.

China is basically an agricultural country, and women account for more than 60 per cent of the rural labour force and are a major force in farming activities. The Law of the People's Republic of China on Rural Land Contracting, which came into effect in 2003, states that women and men enjoy equal rights in contracting land in rural areas, and no organization or individual shall deprive women of their right to contract and operate land or infringe upon their right to do so.

To actively promote gender equality in employment and raise women's ability to find employment or start businesses, the Chinese Government has begun to co-operate with the United Nations Development Programme, International Labour Organization and other international organizations, with satisfactory results. At present, it is accelerating, taking into account the national conditions of China, the process for the approval of the UN's Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention in China.
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