Misplaced Pages

Women in China

A woman in rural Jiangxi
General Statistics
Maternal mortality (per 100,000)	37 (2010)
Women in parliament	24.2% (2013)
Women over 25 with secondary education	54.8% (2010)
Women in labour force	67.7% (2011)
Gender Inequality Index
Value	0.192 (2021)
Rank	48th out of 191
Global Gender Gap Index
Value	0.681 (2022)
Rank	102nd out of 146

Part of a series on
Women in society
Society Women's history (legal rights) Woman Animal advocacy Business Female entrepreneurs Gender representation on corporate boards of directors Diversity (politics) Diversity, equity, and inclusion Economic development Explorers and travelers Education Feminism Womyn Government Conservatives in the US Heads of state or government Legislators Queen regnant List Health Journalism Law Law enforcement Military Mother Nobel Prize laureates Piracy Positions of power Reproductive rights Venture capital Violence and abuse Voting rights Workforce Exchange of women
Science Technology Computing Engineering Geology Medicine dentistry in the United States Organizations Science Science, technology, engineering and mathematics Space Telegraphy
Arts Humanities Architecture Arts Art history field Women's cinema Dance Film "Chick flicks" Fine arts Literature Science fiction Philosophy Feminist philosophy Photographers Music Jazz Punk rock In Shakespeare's works
Religion Theological figures Baháʼí Faith Bible Buddhism Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Opus Dei Hinduism Islam Judaism Sikhism Taoism
Popular culture Comics Portrayal in American comics Film industry Music Fictional pirates Speculative fiction Video games Gender representation in video games
Sports Auto racing Baseball Basketball Boxing Cricket Curling Cycling Fastpitch softball Football / soccer Golf Gymnastics Ice hockey Lacrosse Mixed martial arts Netball Paralympic Games Rodeo Roller derby Rowing Surfing Swimming Tennis Track and field Volleyball Winter sports See also: List of sports
By country Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Argentina Armenia Australia Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Belgium Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Cambodia Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Croatia Cuba Cyprus (North) Denmark DR Congo Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador East Timor Ethiopia FS Micronesia Fiji Finland France Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Iceland Italy India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Ivory Coast Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Libya Madagascar Malaysia Maldives Mali Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Mongolia Morocco Myanmar Nepal New Zealand Niger Nigeria North Korea Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Russia Saudi Arabia Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Spain Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Sudan Suriname Sri Lanka Sweden Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Thailand Tonga Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu Trinidad and Tobago Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Kurdistan
v t e

Women in China make up approximately 49% of the population. In modern China, the lives of women have changed significantly due to the late Qing dynasty reforms, the changes of the Republican period, the Chinese Civil War, and the rise of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Like women in many other cultures, women in China have been historically oppressed. For thousands of years, women in China lived under the patriarchal social order characterized by the Confucius teaching of "filial piety".

Achievement of women's liberation has been on the agenda of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the beginning of the PRC. Following the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong replaced the common use of the term "女人" with "妇女" as he famously said "妇女 能顶半边天" (Women hold up half the sky). "妇女" is a term for labouring women, which signifies the revolutionary role that women play in the liberation of China. The first celebration of "妇女节" (International Women's Day) immediately after the establishment of CCP consolidated the representational strategies associated with "妇女" .

During the Mao era, many policies were carried out to promote gender equality. The New Marriage Law passed on May 1, 1950 outlawed forced marriage and concubinage. The last few regional practices of foot-binding died out, with the last case of foot-binding reported in 1957. The Great Leap Forward, while focusing on improving total productivity, created work opportunities for women. However, they still remained as peripheral roles and rarely climbed up to positions of decision-making. The representation of women as "iron women" who worked restlessly in workplaces dismissed the unalleviated domestic burden that women were still forced to take and homogenized the individuality of women.

In contemporary China, although women's rights in China have improved tremendously, women still suffer a lower status compared with men. Under CCP general secretary Xi Jinping, the gains of women have dropped compared to previous leaders. After witnessing the growing feminist movements in China, the government under Xi shut down many activist NGOs and censored feminist platforms. Feminism has been viewed by nationalists as a toxic Western ideology. Xi Jinping has encouraged women to "actively foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture."

Historical development

Ancient and Imperial China

Pre-modern Chinese society was predominantly patriarchal and patrilineal from the 11th century B.C. onward. The freedoms and opportunities available to women varied depending on the time period and regional situation. Women's status, like men's, was closely tied to the Chinese kinship system. From the ancient Chinese views, the family structure is the micro-system of the political system. Therefore, loyalty towards the Emperor is the same as the women inside the family who should obey their husbands to fulfilled the rule that had been set up for a long tradition. A prejudiced preference for sons has long existed in China, leading to high rates of female infanticide. There was also a strong tradition of restricting women's freedom of movement, particularly that of upper-class women, which manifested through the practice of foot binding. However, the legal and social status of women has greatly changed in the 20th century, especially in the 1970s, after the one-child and opening-up policies were enacted.

Older Chinese traditions surrounding marriage included many ritualistic steps. During the Han dynasty, a marriage lacking a dowry or betrothal gift was seen as dishonorable. Only after gifts were exchanged would a marriage proceed; and the bride would be taken to live in the ancestral home of the new husband. Here, a wife was expected to live with the entirety of her husband's family and to follow all of their rules and beliefs. Many families followed the Confucian teachings regarding honoring their elders. These rituals were passed down from father to son. Official family lists were compiled, containing the names of all the sons and wives. Brides who did not produce a son were written out of family lists. When a husband died, the bride was seen as the property of her spouse's family. Ransoms were set by some brides' families to get their daughters back, though never with her children, who remained with her husband's family.

In the late Qing dynasty period, extramarital sex by women and fornication (a label typically used to refer to pre-marital sex) by women were criminalized.

Developments in early 20th century

Traditional family structures, including a multi-generational household in which paternal grandmothers dominated household life, persisted into the early years of the Republic of China.

In the 1880s and 1890s, both male and female Chinese reformist intellectuals, concerned with the development of China to a modern country, raised feminist issues and gender equality in public debate; schools for girls were founded, a feminist press emerged, and the Foot Emancipation Society and Tian Zu Hui, promoting the abolition of foot binding.

Early Reformers, including Liang Qichao, a scholar, journalist, and political reformer in the last years of the Qing dynasty, were one of the first in late imperial China to consider "the woman question".

Many changes in women's lives took place during the Republic of China (1912–1949). In 1912 the Women's Suffrage Alliance, an umbrella organization of many local women's organizations, was founded to work for the inclusion of women's equal rights and suffrage in the constitution of the new republic after the abolition of the monarchy, and while the effort was not successful, it signified an important period of feminist activism.

In November 1919, Miss Zhao's suicide sparked cultural debate regarding the role of modern women in social and political life. A woman forced into an arranged marriage by her family, Miss Zhao, committed suicide by cutting her throat while being transported to the house of her would-be husband. The formerly routine occurrence of a woman's suicide to avoid arranged marriage became an important center of debate for Chinese feminists. Feminist commentators included Mao Zedong who published nine newspaper articles about the suicide and the need to overhaul societal norms relating to women. Simultaneously, Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House was newly-translated and being performed in Shanghai. The example of the play's Nora further fueled radical intellectuals and the discussion of women's roles in China.

A generation of educated and professional new women emerged after the inclusion of girls in the state school system and after women students were acted at the University of Beijing in 1920, and in the 1931 Civil Code, women were given equal inheritance rights, banned forced marriage and gave women the right to control their own money and initiate divorce. No nationally unified women's movement organized until China was unified under the Kuomintang Government in Nanjing in 1928; women's suffrage was included in the new Constitution of 1936, although the constitution was not implemented until 1947.

Professor Lin Chun writes that "Women's liberation had been highlighted in the communist agenda from the outset, and, in that sense, the Chinese revolution was simultaneously a women's revolution, and Chinese socialism a women's cause." By the 1920s, the Communist movement in China used a labor and peasant organizing strategy that combined workplace advocacy with women's rights advocacy. The Communists would lead union organizing efforts among male workers while simultaneously working in nearby peasant communities on women's rights issues, including literacy for women. Mao Zedong and Yang Kaihui were among the most effective Communist political organizers using this method. Poor peasant women were generally strong supporters of Communist Party programs.

During the White Terror that began with the 1927 Shanghai Massacre by the Kuomintang against the Communists, the Kuomintang specifically targeted women perceived as non-traditional. Kuomintang forces presumed that women who had short hair and whom had not been subjected to the practice of foot binding were radicals. Kuomintang forces cut their breasts off, shaved their heads, and displayed their mutilated corpses to cow the populace.

In the Chinese Civil War, the Communists enacted women's rights measures in areas of the country they controlled. Orders issued by the Red Army's soviet governments advanced the freedom to divorce and marry, liberating women from feudal marriages and resulting in women's strong support for the revolution. In the revolutionary base area of Jiangxi, the CCP-led authorities enacted the Marriage Regulations of 1931 and the Marriage Laws of 1941, which were modeled after Soviet Union statutes. These statutes declared marriage as a free association between a woman and a man without the interference of other parties and permitted divorce on mutual agreement. At the time, they were the most progressive marriage laws in China and created the conditions for women to divorce men they had been forced to marry, leave abusive spouses, and till their own land. Also during the Civil War, rural women were at the forefront of providing care to the dependents of men who fought in the Red Army, particularly through Women's Associations.

During China's land reform movement (which began after the defeat of the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War and continued in the early years of the People's Republic of China), the Communist Party encouraged rural women in achieving a "double fanshen" - a revolutionary transformation as both a peasant and a feminist awakening as a woman. The Party urged rural women to reject traditional Chinese assumptions about their role in society. In conjunction with land reform, the movement promoted women's issues such as the elimination of bride prices and reversing the stigma against widows remarrying. The Party promoted successes in women's liberation, such as the progress of the Hui women of northwest China who were said to have not just received land through the rural movement, but also "freedom over their own bodies" and embraced political participation.

Developments in the People's Republic of China

After the founding of the PRC in 1949, newly-established local governments continued to prioritize women's political mobilization. Mao's statement that "women hold up half the sky" became a major slogan symbolizing the PRC's support for women's social and political equality with men. The cultural stigma against young women working outside the home disintegrated. Chinese grandmothers increased their roles as caregivers for their grandchildren, facilitating younger women's opportunities for paid work. In a weakening of traditional Chinese patrilineality, grandmothers on the mother's side gained equal status to grandmothers on the father's side allowing them to fill gaps in childcare.

Soon after its founding, the PRC passed the Marriage Law of 1950. It prohibited concubinage and marriages when one party was sexually powerless, suffered from a venereal disease, leprosy, or a mental disorder. The law abolished arranged marriages, paying money or goods for a wife, and outlawed polygamy and child marriage. Following the passage of the 1950 Marriage Law, mass campaigns promoted the principle of freely-chosen monogamous marriages and official registration of marriage.

John Engel, a professor of Family Resources at the University of Hawaii, argues that the PRC established the Marriage Law of 1950 to redistribute wealth and achieve a classless society. The law "was intended to cause ... fundamental changes ... aimed at family revolution by destroying all former patterns ... and building up new relationships on the basis of the new law and new ethics." Xiaorong Li, a researcher at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland, asserts that the Marriage Law of 1950 not only banned the most extreme forms of female subordination and oppression, but gave women the right to make their own marital decisions. Several decades after the implementation of the 1950 Marriage Law, China still faced serious issues, particularly in population control.

In the 1950s, high-level female Communist Party cadre had a significant role in advocating for greater access to abortion and sterilization surgeries—in their view, women could not "hold up half the sky" nor advance their revolutionary work if they had too many children.

In the 1950s, the political campaign for "Five-Good Families" urged families to practice the principles of (1) "harmony between husbands and wives"; (2) "equality between men and women"; (3) "frugality in housekeeping"; (4) "solidarity among neighbors"; and (5) "honoring elders and caring for the young."

From the 1950s onwards, China sought to pursue gender equality by including women in the formal labor force. In urban areas, this process was facilitated by the development of a network of public nurseries, daycare centers, and kindergartens. In rural areas, working mothers obtained support from mothers-in-law and other extended family members, usually on the father's side.

The Great Leap Forward's focus on total workforce mobilization resulted in opportunities for women's labor advancement. The necessity of mobilizing women's labor prompted the relaxing on birth control restrictions. Increasing collectivization of labor brought more opportunities for women to "leave the home", thereby increasing their economic and personal independence. The number of women in state institutions and state-owned enterprises more than tripled during the period 1957 to 1960.

As women became increasingly needed to work in agriculture and industry, and encouraged by policy to do so, the phenomenon of Iron Women arose. Women did traditionally male work in both fields and factories, including major movements of women into management positions. Women competed for high productivity, and those who distinguished themselves came to be called Iron Women. Women workers on the mobile film projection teams which brought cinema to rural China were promoted by media as model workers and symbols of advancing gender equality. Slogans such as "There is no difference between men and women in this new age," and "We can do anything, and anything we do, we can do it well," became popular.

Women's increasing roles in agricultural labor also had the indirect effect of supporting heavy industry campaign through increasing the availability of men for labor in projects such as the Third Front construction.

During the Cultural Revolution, one way China promoted its policy of state feminism was through revolutionary opera. Most of the eight model dramas in this period featured women as their main characters. The narratives of these women protagonists begin with them oppressed by misogyny, class position, and imperialism before liberating themselves through the discovery of their own internal strength and the Communist Party.

A second marriage law was passed in 1980 and enacted in 1981. This New Marriage Law banned arranged and forced marriages and shifted the focus away from the dominance of men and onto the interests of children and women. Article 2 of the 1980 Marriage Law directly states: "the lawful rights and interests of women, children and the aged are protected. Family planning is practiced." Adults, both men and women, also gained the right to lawful divorce.

To fight the tenacity of tradition, Article 3 of the 1980 Marriage Law continued to ban concubinage, polygamy, and bigamy. The article forbade mercenary marriages in which a bride price or dowry is paid. According to Li, the traditional business of selling women in exchange for marriage returned after the law gave women the right to select their husbands. In 1990, 18,692 cases were investigated by Chinese authorities.

Although the law generally prohibited the exaction of money or gifts in connection with marriage arrangements, bride price payments are still common in rural areas, though dowries have become smaller and less common. In urban areas the dowry custom has nearly disappeared. The bride price custom has since transformed into providing gifts for the bride or her family. Article 4 of the 1980 marriage law banned the usage of compulsion or the interference of third parties, stating: "marriage must be based upon the complete willingness of the two parties." As Engel argues, the law also encouraged gender equality by making daughters just as valuable as sons, particularly in the potential for old-age insurance. Article 8 states: "after a marriage has been registered, the woman may become a member of the man's family, or the man may become a member of the woman's family, according to the agreed wishes of the two parties."

In 2001, the Marriage Law was further revised to protect women from the harmful social trends following China's market reforms, such as polygamy by wealthy men and underpaid female labor. The law was deliberated via an open revision process which included input from feminist academics and women lawyers. Other civil and criminal laws were also amended to better protect women's rights and interests, including the inheritance law. In rural areas, women are often not conferred equal property rights depending on marriage relations.

In 2019 a government directive was released banning employers in China from posting "men preferred" or "men only" job advertising, and banning companies from asking women seeking jobs about their childbearing and marriage plans or requiring applicants to take pregnancy tests.

Women and family

Marriage and family planning

Traditional marriage in pre-revolutionary China was a contract between families rather than between individuals. The parents of the soon-to-be groom and bride arranged the marriage with an emphasis on alliance between the two families. Spouse selection was based on family needs and the socioeconomic status of the potential mate, rather than love or attraction. Although the woman's role varied slightly with the husband's social status, typically her main duty was to provide a son to continue the family name.

Arranged marriages were accomplished by a matchmaker, who acted as a link between the two families. The arrangement of a marriage involved the negotiation of a bride price, gifts to be bestowed to the bride's family, and occasionally a dowry of clothing, furniture, or jewelry from the bride's family for use in her new home. Exchange of monetary compensation for a woman's hand in marriage was also used in purchase marriages.

The Japanese invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War strained traditional family structures. It resulted in mass separations of the old from the young, particularly as the young fled into areas not under Japanese occupation or became soldiers. As a result of the war, young women were also able to find work outside the home, which provided liberty from the traditional households.

In 2013, Xi Jinping stated that it was necessary for women to be "good wives and mothers" to ensure the "healthy growth of the next generation". During the 2020 National People's Congress, a civil code was adopted which contained a number of significant changes for China's laws on marriage and family. A 30-day "cooling off period" was added to divorce proceedings. Before then, some divorces were finalized within hours of application, leading to concerns about impulsive divorces.

In addition the new civil code continues to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. The state news agency Xinhua described the new civil code as guarantying "a harmonious family and society". Writing for The Diplomat, Chauncey Jung writes that these revisions to the civil code complete a transition from the women hold up half of the sky era in which, at least rhetorically, China was one of the most progressive nations in the world in terms of women's rights to more regressive era of "strong family values for a harmonious society". In 2022, an amendment to the Women's Rights and Interests Protection Law directed women to protect "family values".

In 2024, local governments were reported to call women to inquire about their pregnancy status, menstruation cycles, and intentions to have children.

Policies on divorce

The Marriage Law of 1950 empowered women to initiate divorce proceedings. According to Elaine Jeffreys, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and associate professor in China studies, divorce requests were only granted if they were justified by politically proper reasons. These requests were mediated by party-affiliated organizations, rather than accredited legal systems. Chinese women were praised in society if they refused remarriage and remained alive to take care of their spouse's family. Ralph Haughwout Folsom, a professor of Chinese law, international trade, and international business transactions at the University of San Diego, and John H. Minan, a trial attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and a law professor at the University of San Diego, argue that the Marriage Law of 1950 allowed for much flexibility in the refusal of divorce when only one party sought it. During the market-based economic reforms, China re-instituted a formal legal system and implemented provisions for divorce on a more individualized basis.

Jeffreys asserts that the Marriage Law of 1980 provided for divorce on the basis that emotions or mutual affections were broken. As a result of the more liberal grounds for divorce, the divorce rates soared. As women began divorcing their husbands tensions increased and men resisted, especially in rural areas. Although divorce was now legally recognized, thousands of women lost their lives for attempting to divorce their husbands and some committed suicide when the right to divorce was withheld. Divorce, once seen as a rare act during the Mao era (1949–1976), has become more common with rates continuing to increase. Along with this increase in divorce, it became evident that divorced women were often given an unfair share or housing and property.

The amended Marriage Law of 2001, which according to Jeffreys was designed to protect women's rights, provided a solution to this problem by reverting to a "moralistic fault-based system with a renewed focus on collectivist mechanisms to protect marriage and family". Although all property acquired during a marriage was seen as jointly-held, it was not until the implementation of Article 46 of the 2001 Marriage Law that the concealment of joint property was punishable. This was enacted to ensure a fair division during a divorce. The article also granted the right for a party to request compensation from a spouse who committed illegal cohabitation, bigamy, and family violence or desertion.

During Xi Jinping's leadership, the resurgent propaganda of traditional family values in Chinese discourse with the aim to increase birth rate created more obstacles more divorce. In 2020, the "民法典" adopted at the Third Session of the Thirteenth National People's Congress on May 28 introduced a 30-day "cool-off period" for divorce. Article 2077 in Book Five Chapter IV states "Where either party is unwilling to divorce, he may withdraw the divorce registration application within thirty days after such an application is received by the marriage registration authority. Within thirty days after expiration of the period provided in the preceding paragraph, both parties shall personally visit the marriage registration authority to apply for issuance of a divorce certificate, and failing to do so will cause the divorce registration application to be deemed as withdrawn." The news regarding the implementation of "cool-off period" immediately triggered widespread outrage on social media platforms, for many think it interferes with their marital freedom and even jeopardizes the condition for victims of domestic violence. Regarding the worries of the general public, the Legislative Affairs Commission with the NPC Standing Committee claims that extreme situations including domestic violence and drug abuse do not need a "cool-off period" which only concerns with consensual divorce and those cases would be solved by lawsuit. However, several cases of domestic violence or murder after the "cool-off period" came in effect pose doubts regarding the reality of such practice.

Second wives

In traditional China, polygamy was legal and having a concubine was considered a luxury for aristocratic families. Dynastic ambitions were the formal justification for polygamy in that era, as important families sought to increase the number of sons and cement their social and economic ambitions through arranged marriage. Male sexual gratification was also an underlying motivation for polygamy, and concubines were typically younger than wives and chosen for looks rather than social status.

Polygamy continued into the Republic of China era under the Nationalist government. During the nationalist period, other forms of polygamy emerged. One form included two wives but not polygamous cohabitation - for example, if a young man had an arranged marriage in his village and then married a second time while at university. Another form included dual families where a man married and had a family in China and married again while living and traveling abroad. In the 1930s and 1940s, a man could only have one official wife, but polygamy remained in wealthier households where in addition to an official wife, a wealthy man might have a concubine.

In 1950, polygamy was outlawed, but the phenomenon of de facto polygamy, or so-called "second wives" (二奶 èrnǎi in Chinese), has reemerged in recent years. When polygamy was legal, women were more tolerant of their husband's extramarital affairs. Today, women who discover that their husband has a "second wife" are less tolerant, and since the New Marriage Law of 1950 can ask for a divorce.

The sudden industrialization in China brought two types of people together: young female workers and rich businessmen from cities like Hong Kong. In British-ruled Hong Kong, polygamy was legal until 1971 pursuant to the British colonial practice of not interfering in local customs that Britain viewed as relatively harmless to the public order. A number of rich businessmen are attracted to these economically dependent women and started relationships known as "keeping a second wife" (bao yinai) in Cantonese. Some migrant women who struggle to find husbands become second wives and lovers. There are many villages in the southern part of China where predominantly these "second wives" live. The men come and spend a large amount of time in these villages every year while their first wife and family stay in the city. The relationships can range from just being casual paid sexual transactions to long-term relationships. If a relationship does develop more, some of the Chinese women quit their job and become 'live-in lovers' whose main job is to please the working man.

The first wives in these situations have a hard time and deal with it in different ways. Women that are far away from their husbands do not have many options. Even if the wives do move to mainland China with their husbands, the businessman still finds ways to carry on affairs. Some wives follow the motto "one eye open, with the other eye closed" meaning they understand their husbands are bound to cheat but want to make sure they practice safe sex and do not bring home other children. Many first wives downplay the father's role to try to address the children's questions about a father that is often absent. Other women fear for their financial situations and protect their rights by putting the house and other major assets in their own names.

This situation has created many social and legal issues. Unlike previous generations of arranged marriages, the modern polygamy is more often voluntary. Women in China face serious pressures to be married, by family and friends. There is a derogatory term for women who are not married by the time they are in their late twenties, sheng nu.

Education

Female primary and secondary school enrollment suffered more than male enrollment during the Great Chinese Famine (1958–1961), and in 1961 there was a further sudden decrease.

As of 2023, Chinese girls receive more schooling on average than boys. A number of studies attribute the improvement in girls' schooling to the effects of the one-child policy.

Gender disparity persisted into the 1990s for tertiary institutions. By 2009, however, half of all college students were women. China's rate of increase in women's higher education levels has been substantially greater than countries with similar, and some countries with higher, per capita income levels.

Studies for the years 2000-2009 found that Chinese women had higher financial returns on education than men did, with an 11-12% return per year of schooling compared with 6-7% for men.

Health care

In traditional Chinese culture, which was a patriarchal society based on Confucian ideology, the healthcare system was tailored for men, and women were not prioritized. Traditional culture emphasized the role of grandmothers in the management of childbirth. Chinese health care has since undergone much reform and has tried to provide men and women with equal health care.

The People's Republic of China has enacted various laws to protect the health care rights of women, including the Maternal and Child Care law. This law and numerous others focus on protecting the rights of all women in the People's Republic of China.

In the PRC's early years, traditional midwives came to be viewed as dirty and unscientific. By 1959, over 750,000 midwives were retrained with some modern medical practice, but only 5,300 were fully modern trained midwives. With China's program of barefoot doctors, perinatal practitioners were often older women. Their work was effective, with much of the 1950s and 1960s population boom resulting from the decline in infant mortality.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the People's Republic of China began to focus on the provision of health care for women. This change was apparent when the women in the workforce were granted health care. Health care policy required all women workers to receive urinalysis and vaginal examinations yearly.

For women in China today, the most common type of cancer is cervical cancer. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests using routine screening to detect cervical cancer. However, information on cervical cancer screening is not widely available for women in China.

Abortion in China is legal and generally accessible. Abortions are widely-accepted and available to all women through China's family planning programme, public hospitals, private hospitals, and clinics nationwide. In August 2022, the National Health Commission announced that it would direct measures toward "preventing unintended pregnancy and reducing abortions that are not medically necessary" in an effort to boost population growth. The announced support measures include improvements with regard to insurance and taxation, improvements for education and housing, and encouraging local governments to boost infant care services and family friendly workplaces.

Ethnic and religious minorities

After the founding of People's Republic of China in 1949, the communist government authorities called traditional Muslim customs on women "backwards or feudal".

Hui Muslim women have internalized the concept of gender equality because they view themselves as not just Muslims but Chinese citizens, so they have the right to exercise rights like initiating divorce.

A unique feature of Islam in China is the presence of female-only mosques. Women in China can act as prayer leaders and also become imams. Female-only mosques grant women more power over religious affairs. This is rare by global standards. By comparison, the first women's mosque in the United States didn't open until January 2015.

Among the Hui people (but not other Muslim ethnic minorities such as the Uyghurs) Quranic schools for girls evolved into woman-only mosques and women acted as imams as early as 1820. These imams are known as nü ahong (女阿訇), i.e. "female akhoond", and they guide female Muslims in worship and prayer.

Due to Beijing having tight control over religious practices, Chinese Muslims are isolated from trends of radical Islam which emerged after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. According to Dr Khaled Abou El Fadl from the University of California in Los Angeles, this explains the situation whereby female imams, an ancient tradition long ended elsewhere, continue to exist in China.

Among Uyghurs, it was believed that God designed women to endure hardship and work. The word for "helpless one", ʿājiza, was used for women who were not married, while women who were married were called mazlūm in Xinjiang; however, divorce and remarriage was facile for the women. The modern Uyghur dialect in Turfan uses the Arabic word for oppressed, maẓlum, to refer to "married old woman" and pronounce it as mäzim. Women were normally referred to as "oppressed person" (mazlum-kishi). 13 or 12 years old was the age of marriage for women in Khotan, Yarkand, and Kashgar.

During the last years of imperial China, Swedish Christian missionaries observed the oppressive conditions for Uyghur Muslim women in Xinjiang during their stay between 1892 and 1938. Uyghur Muslim women were oppressed and often held domestic service positions, while Han Chinese women were free and given a choice of profession. When Uyghur Muslim women married Han Chinese men, the women were hated by their families and people. The Uyghur Muslims viewed single unmarried women as prostitutes and held them in extreme disregard. Child marriages for girls were very common and the Uyghurs called girls "overripe" if they were not married by 15 or 16 years old. Four wives were allowed along with any number of temporary marriages contracted by Mullahs to "pleasure wives" for a set time period. Divorce and marriage was rampant, each being conducted by Mullahs simultaneously, and some men married hundreds of women and could divorce their wives for no given reason. Wives were forced to stay in the household, to be obedient to their husbands, and were judged according to how many children they could bear. Unmarried women were viewed as whores and many children were born with venereal diseases.

The birth of a girl was seen as a terrible calamity by the local Uyghur Muslims and boys were worth more to them. The constant stream of marriage and divorces led to children being mistreated by stepparents.

A Swedish missionary said "These girls were surely the first girls in Eastern Turkestan who had had a real youth before getting married. The Muslim woman has no youth. Directly from childhood's carefree playing of games, she enters life's bitter everyday toil… She is but a child and a wife." The marriage of 9 year old Aisha to the Prophet Muhammad was cited by Uyghur Muslims to justify marrying girl children, whom they viewed as mere products. The Muslims also attacked the Swedish Christian mission and Hindus resident in the city. Lobbying by Swedish Christian missionaries led to child marriage for under 15-year-old girls to be banned by the Chinese Governor in Urumqi, although the Uyghur Muslims ignored the law.

Population control

One-child policy

In 1956, the Chinese government publicly announced its goal to control the exponentially increasing population size. The government planned to use education and publicity as their main modes of increasing awareness. Zhou Enlai launched the first program for smaller families under the guidance of Madame Li Teh-chuan, the Minister of Health at the time. During this time, family planning and contraceptive usage were highly publicized and encouraged.

The One-child policy, initiated in 1978 and first applied in 1979, mandated that each married couple may bear only one child except in the case of special circumstances. These conditions included, "the birth of a first child who has developed a non-hereditary disability that will make it difficult to perform productive labour later in life, the fact that both husband and wife are themselves single children, a misdiagnosis of barrenness in the wife combined with a passage of more than five years after the adoption of a child, and a remarrying husband and wife who have between them only one child." The law was replaced by a two-child policy in 2015, and then a three-child policy in 2021. On July 26, 2021, all restrictions were lifted, allowing Chinese couples to have any number of children.

Sex-selective abortion

In China, males are traditionally thought to be of greater value to a family because they take on greater responsibilities, have the capacity to earn higher wages, continue the family line, receive an inheritance, and are able to care for their elderly parents. The preference for sons coupled with the one-child-policy have led to a high rate of sex-selective abortion in China. Therefore, mainland China has a highly masculine sex ratio. Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, asserted in 1990 that over 100 million women were missing globally, with 50 million women missing from China alone. Sen attributed the deficit in the number of women to sex-selective abortion, female infanticide, and inadequate nutrition for girls, all of which have were exacerbated by the One-child policy.

In 1986, the National Commission for Family Planning and the Ministry of Health prohibited prenatal sex determination except when diagnosing hereditary diseases.Individuals or clinics that violate the prohibition are subject to fines. This prohibition was repeatedly affirmed in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.Since the 1990s, government efforts to promote daughter/son equality in family planning and to eliminate the traditional son preference in China have increased, further accelerating after the United Nations-sponsored Caring for Girls national campaign in 2003. Sex-selective abortions in China are illegal.

The sex ratio between male and female births in mainland China reached 117:100 in the year 2000, substantially more masculine than the natural baseline, which ranges between 103:100 and 107:100. It had risen from 108:100 in 1981—at the boundary of the natural baseline—to 111:100 in 1990.

When family planning policies limited the number of children a family could have, immense social pressures are placed upon women. Women are mostly blamed when giving birth to a girl. Women were subjected to forced abortions if they appear to be having a girl. This situation led to higher female infanticide rates and female deaths in China.

Other Asian regions also have higher than average ratios, including Taiwan (110:100), which does not have a family planning policy. Many studies have explored the reason for the gender-based birthrate disparity in China as well as other countries. A study in 1990 attributed the high preponderance of reported male births in mainland China to four main causes: diseases which affect females more severely than males; the result of widespread under-reporting of female births; the illegal practice of sex-selective abortion made possible by the widespread availability of ultrasound; and finally, acts of child abandonment and infanticide.

Iron Fist Campaign

According to reports by Amnesty International, family planning officials in Puning City, Guangdong Province, launched the Iron Fist Campaign in April 2010. This campaign targeted individuals for sterilization in an attempt to control population growth. The targeted individuals were asked to go to governmental clinics where they would be sterilized. If they refused the procedure, then they put their families at risk for detainment.

The Iron Fist Campaign lasted for 20 days and targeted 9,559 individuals. Approximately 50 percent consented and 1,377 relatives of targeted couples were detained. Family planning officials defended the Iron Fist Campaign, asserting that the large population of migrant workers in Puning misunderstood the One-child policy and therefore had not complied with family planning regulations. In an attempt to standardize family planning policies across all of China, the Population and Family Planning Law of 2002 was implemented, which protects individual rights and bans the usage of coercion or detainment.

Property ownership

In current-day China, women enjoy legal equal rights to property, but in practice, these rights can be rescinded. Chinese women have historically held little rights to private property, both by societal customs and by law. In imperial China (before 1911 C.E.), family households held property collectively, rather than as individual members of the household. This property customarily belonged to the family ancestral clan, with legal control belonging to the family head, or the eldest male.

Ancestry in imperial China was patrilineal, or passed through the male, and women could not share in the family property. Upon the death of the head of the household, the property was passed to the eldest son. In the absence of an eligible son, a family would often adopt a son to continue the family line and property. However, as Kathryn Bernhardt, a scholar of Chinese history points out, nearly one in three women during the Song dynasty (960–1279 C.E.) would either have no brothers or no sons, leaving them with some agency over family property. In these cases, unmarried daughters would receive their fathers' property in the absence of direct male descendants, or an unmarried widow would choose the family heir. A law enacted during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 C.E.) required that in the absence of a direct male descendant, a man's property was to go to his nephews. With this change in law, women's access to private property was even more restricted. At that point, only if none of a man's sons and none of his brothers' sons were alive to inherit property would a daughter receive the inheritance.

In most cases, the most control over family property that a widow would receive was maintenance, or the agency to control the property while an heir came of age. In some cases after some reforms in the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), some women could retain maintenance over undivided property even after their sons came of age. Law during the Republican era interpreted this to mean that widows held complete power over sons in control of the family property.

The Kuomintang, which assumed power over China in 1911, publicly advocated for gender equality, though not very many changes in property rights went into effect until the enactment of the Republican Civil Code in 1930, which changed the definitions of property and family inheritance. The code specified that family property legally belonged to the father, with no connection to the ancestral clan. Inheritance of this property was based on direct lineage, regardless of gender, so that sons and daughters would receive an equal share of family property upon the death of their parents. Furthermore, a man's will or appointment of a different heir could not fully bypass the legally mandated inheritance structures, preventing families from holding onto gender-discriminatory customs. Despite the law's equitable wording on the property, some scholars, such as Deborah Davis and Kathryn Bernhardt, point out that the legal definitions regarding property may not have entirely changed the practices of the general public.

The People's Republic of China (PRC), which assumed control in 1949, also promised gender equality. The PRC's approach was different from the Kuomintang. With regards to land, all land was owned by the state and allocated for people to use, so technically no individual, male or female, owned land. In 1978, the Chinese government set up a household farming system that split agricultural land into small plots for villages to allocate to citizens.

The land was distributed to households with legal responsibility in the family head or the eldest male. A woman's access to land was then contingent on her being part of a household. Land leases were technically supposed to transfer with marriage to a woman's marital family, meaning women could potentially lose land upon marriage. In some rural areas, women can lose property rights if they marry outside of the village.

For property other than land, new Chinese laws allow for the distinction between personal and communal property. Married couples can simultaneously own some things individually while sharing others with their spouse and family. With regard to divorce, Chinese law generally demands a 50/50 split of property. The Marriage Law of 1980 defined different types of divorce that would split the conjugal property differently, such as instances of adultery or domestic violence.

Since most divorce disputes are settled at a local level, the law allows courts to review specific situations and make decisions in the best interest of the children. Typically, such a decision would simultaneously favor the mother, especially in disputes over a house where the children would live. In some divorce disputes "ownership" and "use" over property would be distinguished, giving a mother and child "use" of the family house without awarding the mother full ownership of the house.

Employment

If female labor force participation is used as the indicator to measure gender equality, China would be one of the most egalitarian countries in the world: female labor force participation in China increased dramatically after the founding of the People's Republic and almost reached a universal level. Women's participation in the work force had been a policy goal since 1949, and increased greatly during the Great Leap Forward, as the need for total workforce mobilization in that period caused women to take on traditionally male roles.

According to a study by Bauer et al., of women who married between 1950 and 1965, 70 percent had jobs, and women who married between 1966 and 1976, 92 percent had jobs. In 1982, Chinese working women represented 43 percent of the total population, a larger proportion than either working American women (35.3 percent) or working Japanese women (36 percent). As a result of the increased participation in the labor force, women's contribution to family income increased from 20 percent in the 1950s to 40 percent in the 1990s.

China has the world's most gender-balanced technical and professional work force and exceptional wage equality between women and men.

Rural work

In traditional China, the land was passed down from father to son and in the case of no son, the land was then given to a close male relative. Although in the past women in China were not granted ownership of land, today in rural areas of the People's Republic of China, women possess pivotal roles in farming, which allows them control over the area's central sources of production.

Population greatly affects the mode of farming that is utilized, which determines the duties women have. According to tishwayan Thomas Rawski, a professor of Economics and History at the University of Pittsburgh, the Shifting cultivation method is utilized in less populated areas and results in women performing more of the agricultural duties, whereas in more populated areas complicated plough cultivation is used.

Men typically performs plough cultivation, but during periods of high demand women pitch in with agricultural duties of planting, harvesting and transporting. Women also have key roles in tea cultivation and double-cropping rice. Agricultural income is supplemented by women's work in animal rearing, spinning, basket construction, weaving, and the production of other various crafts.

Urban and migrant work

In China, only the person who works (not their spouse) receives social security benefits. This is a factor contributing to women's high participation in the urban workplace.

The People's Republic of China's dependence on low-wage manufacturing to produce goods for the international market is due to changes in China's economic policies. These economic policies have also encouraged the export industries. Urban industrial areas are staffed with young migrant women workers who leave their rural homes. Since males are more likely than females to attend college, rural females often migrate to urban employment in hopes of supplementing their families' incomes.

In 1984 the reform of the Regulations of Permanent Residence Registration marked an increase in the migration of rural Chinese workers. As the restrictions on residence became more lenient, less penalizing, and permitted people to travel to find employment, more women engaged in migrant labor. In the cities, women could find low-paying work as factory workers. These increased employment opportunities drew women out of rural areas in hopes of escaping poverty. Although this reformed system enabled the migration of rural residents, it prohibited them from accepting any benefits in the cities or changing their permanent residence, which led to a majority of migrant workers not receiving any forms of medical care, education, or housing.

Nationally, male migrant workers outnumber female migrants 2:1, i.e. women comprise about 30% of the so-called 'floating population'. However, in some areas, Guangdong Province, for example, the ratio favors women. In the industrial district of Nanshan in Shenzhen, 80 percent of the migrant workers were women. A preference for younger women over older women has led to a predominantly young population of migrant workers.

Married women have more restrictions on mobility due to duties to the family, whereas younger women are more likely to not be married. Also, younger rural women are less likely to become pregnant, possess nimble fingers, are more able to work longer hours, and are less knowledgeable about their statutory rights. For the women who are able to gain employment, they then face the possibility of being forced to sign a contract prohibiting them from getting pregnant or married during their period of employment. Chinese law mandates the coverage of maternity leave and costs of childbirth. These maternity laws have led to employers' reluctance to hire women.

E-commerce

Official data by Alibaba and a study by academic Lizhi Liu. conclude that more than half of Taobao online store owners are women. Liu attributes the substantial presence of female business owners in Chinese e-commerce to their tendency to have extensive knowledge on product categories that are frequently sold online, the anonymity of online platforms reduction in gender bias, and the existence of flexible hours and remote work.

Stereotypically "feminine" jobs and professions

Along with economic reforms in China, gender differences in terms of physical appearance and bodily gestures have been made more visible through the media and commerce. This has created jobs that demand stereotypically feminine attributes, particularly in the service industry. Sales representatives in cosmetics and clothing stores are usually young, attractive women who continually cultivate their feminine appearance, corresponding to images of women in advertisements.

Chinese women nowadays also dominate other domains of professional training such as psychotherapy. Courses and workshops in psychotherapy attract women of different ages who feel the burden of sensitively mastering social relations in and outside their households and at the same time as a channel to realize themselves as individuals not reduced to their familial roles as mothers or wives.

Women executives

Women are substantially less represented in senior management than men. According to the China Stock Market and Accounting Research Database, the proportion of women executives of publicly traded Chinese companies has increased in age cohorts from executives born in the 1950s to executives born in the 1990s. As of 2017, only 12% of executives born in the 1950s were women, compared with 23% of those born in the 1970s, 35% of those born in the 1980s, and 42% of those born in the 1990s.

Female Billionaires

In 2018 of all self-made female billionaires in the world, 61% were from China, including nine out of the top 10, as well as the world's richest self-made female billionaire Zhong Huijuan.

Women in politics

Mao Zedong established a quota for the inclusion of women within Communist Party leadership, although few women have reached the highest positions within the Party.

Rural women had a significant impact on China's land reform movement, with the Communist Party making specific efforts to mobilize them for agrarian revolution. Party activists observed that because peasant women were less tied to old power structures, they more readily opposed those identified as class enemies. In 1947, Deng Yingchao emphasized at a land reform policy meeting that "women function as great mobilizers when they speak bitterness." The All-China Women's Federation issued a call to Party activists to encourage peasant women to understand their "special bitterness" from a class perspective. Women activists helped peasant women prepare to speak in public, including by roleplaying as landlords to help such women practice.

During the Cultural Revolution, two women who were model workers -- Wu Guixian and Li Suwen—rose to become national level political leaders in only seven years.

Women's political disadvantage is most evident in their severe under representation in the more powerful political positions. At the top level of decision making, no woman has ever been among the nine members of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party's Politburo. Just 3 of 27 government ministers are women, and importantly, since 1997, China has fallen to 53rd place from 16th in the world in terms of female representation at its parliament, the National People's Congress, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Party leaders such as Zhao Ziyang have vigorously opposed the participation of women in the political process. Within the Chinese Communist Party women face a glass ceiling.

Since the early 2000s, China's civil service has institutionalized recruitment quotas for women (along with other quotas for non-Communist Party members and ethnic groups), to increase representation in the civil service.

Chinese women in politics generally have higher levels of educational attainment than men, with 75% of them having graduate-level degrees compared with 56% of men.

Neighborhood committees of the Communist Party are often led by older women.

Crimes against women

Domestic violence

In Henan in the 1980s, activist Liang Jun campaigned against domestic violence. In 2004, the All-China Women's Federation compiled survey results to show that thirty percent of families in China experienced domestic violence, with 16 percent of men having beaten their wives. In 2003, the percentage of women domestically abusing men increased, with 10 percent of familial violence involving male victims. The Chinese Marriage Law was amended in 2001 to offer mediation services and compensation to those who were subjected to domestic violence. Domestic violence was finally criminalized with the 2005 amendment of the Law of Protection of Rights and Interests of Women. However, the lack of public awareness of the 2005 amendment has allowed spousal abuse to persist.

In 2022, China's highest court issued guidelines that make it easier for domestic violence victims to obtain personal protection orders. The guidelines broadens the definition of domestic violence to include additional conduct such as stalking, harassment, and verbal abuse; it also lowers the threshold for proof.

Women's safety

China is generally considered a safe place for women, having some of the lowest crime rates in the world. However, crime is systematically underreported and women continue to face discrimination in public and private spaces.

In recent years, with the rise of feminist voices on China's social media platforms, many incidences of violence were able to be reported. One of the incidences that triggered the most outrage and fear was 2022 Tangshan restaurant attack. On June 10, 2022, a group of men brutally assaulted four women at a barbecue restaurant in Lubei District, Tangshan at midnight. A drunken man, after his failed attempt to sexually harass a woman, was irritated and, along with his companions, violently attacked four women at the restaurant. As the report of the incidence and the restaurant's CCTV footage were uploaded online, they were quickly circulated.

The government officials, after the attack happened, initially offered self-contradictory accounts on the handling of suspects. In an interview with the newspaper The Paper on the afternoon of June 10, Tangshan Police claimed they had detained the suspects right after the incidence, while the secretary of Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of Tangshan said the police were still searching for the suspects. On June 11, all the suspects were detained.

A fierce public debate was also generated with regard to whether such attack was relevant to gender issues. Several Chinese authorities denied the significance of gender played in the attack, claiming it was about public security but not women's security specifically. And many believed the blame should be about these specific attackers rather than be generalized to "all man". However, many feminists disagreed with such view and were in outrage. They thought those voices essentially dismissed the origin of the attack being a failed attempt of sexual harassment towards women and underplayed the structural violence experienced by women in everyday life.

Foot binding

In 1912, following the fall of the Qing dynasty and the end of imperial rule, the Republican government outlawed foot binding, and popular attitudes toward the practice began to shift by the late nineteenth century. Foodbound women became the symbol of a weak Chinese state. Colonialism greatly influenced the shifting attitudes among elite Chinese men surrounding foot binding. As commentators from the West denounced foot binding, "elite Chinese rapidly came to understand foot binding as barbaric, painful, harmful to women's health and childbearing, unscientific..." and more. Although outlawed, it continued to be practiced in many areas. In 1949, the practice of footbinding was successfully banned. According to Dorothy Y. Ko, bound feet can be seen as a footnote of "all that was wrong with traditional China: oppression of women, insularity, despotism, and disregard for human rights". However they can also be seen as female empowerment within a traditional patriarchal society.

Trafficking

In the 1950s, Mao Zedong, the first chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, launched a campaign to eradicate prostitution throughout China. The campaign made the act of trafficking women severely punishable by law. A major component was the rehabilitation program in which prostitutes and trafficked women were provided "medical treatment, thought reform, job training, and family reintegration". Since the economic reform in 1979, sex trafficking and other social vices have revived.

According to United Nations Inter-Agency Project On Human Trafficking (UNIAP), China is both the source and the destination for human trafficking. UNIAP reports shows, with the rise of inter-provincial migration within the country, Chinese women between 16 and 20 years are the main victims of trafficking. Southeastern provinces such as Yunnan and Guizhou are the main source provinces, while Fujian, Guangdong, and Shandong are the main destination provinces of trafficking. Cross-border trafficking of women is also prevalent in China. Many migrants from Vietnam, Russia, Korea and Myanmar are trafficked into China and sold for purposes such as commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage. The huge market for human trafficking is partially due to the uneven gender ratio caused by the one-child policy. The increasing bachelors in China produces a high demand for bride trafficking. Women trafficked are kidnapped from their homes and sold to gangs who traffic women, often displacing them by great distances, making it difficult for them to escape. Men who purchase the women often do not allow them to leave the house, and take their documentation. Many women become pregnant and have children, and are burdened to provide for their family.

In recent years, China passed a number of laws against trafficking including the latest statement "Notice by the General Office of the State Council of Issuing China's Action Plan against Human Abduction and Trafficking (2021-2030)" released in 2021. However, recent trafficking cases such as the widespread Xuzhou chained woman incident have pose doubt on the effective enforcement of anti-trafficking laws in China. On January 28, 2022, a video showing a mentally traumatized woman chained to the wall in Fengxian, Xuzhou by her husband went viral on social platforms. The government initially released a statement claiming the woman was legally married to the husband. As the public's skepticism grew, the statement was overturned by the police investigative team, who verified it was in fact a case of human trafficking. The government later claimed to locate the true identity of the woman, although many were still highly skeptical of the result of official investigation. Wuyi, a volunteer who went to Xuzhou to further investigate by herself, has encountered state obstruction and been imprisoned ever since.

Prostitution

Shortly after taking power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party embarked upon a series of campaigns that purportedly eradicated prostitution from mainland China by the early 1960s. Since the loosening of government controls over society in the early 1980s, prostitution in mainland China not only has become more visible, but also can now be found throughout both urban and rural areas. In spite of government efforts, prostitution has now developed to the extent that it comprises an industry involving a large number of people and producing a significant economic output.

Prostitution has also become associated with a number of problems, including organized crime, government corruption, and sexually transmitted diseases. Due to China's history of favoring sons over daughters in the family, there has been a disproportionately larger number of marriageable aged men unable to find available women, so some turn to prostitutes instead.

See also

• Women in the Republic of China
• Feminism in China
• Feminism in Chinese Communism
• Globalization and women in China
• Urban society in the People's Republic of China
• Rural society in the People's Republic of China
• Women in ancient China
• Missing women of China
• Female infanticide in China
• Abortion in China
• Chinese patriarchy
• Chinese ideals of female beauty
• List of Chinese administrative divisions by gender ratio
• Concubinage in China
• New Marriage Law
• Prostitution in China
• Women in agriculture in China
• Chinese rural left behind women
• Women in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War

Notes

1. For statistical purposes, the data for China do not include those for Hong Kong and Macau. Data exclude 2.3 million servicemen, 4.65 million persons with permanent resident status difficult to define, and 0.12 per cent undercount based on the post enumeration survey.

References

1. "Women in Parliaments: World Classification". Archived from the original on 2014-03-28. Retrieved 2017-03-28.
2. "Human Development Report 2021/2022" (PDF). HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORTS. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
3. "Global Gender Gap Report 2022" (PDF). World Economic Forum. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 July 2022. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
4. "UNSD — Demographic and Social Statistics". Archived from the original on 14 April 2022. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
5. ^ Lu, Shen. "Under Xi Jinping, Women in China Have Given Up Gains". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
6. ^ Li, Yuhui (2000). "Women's Movement and Change of Women's Status in China". Journal of International Women's Studies. 1 (1): 30–40. Archived from the original on 2022-04-25. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
7. ^ Huang, Xin (11 July 2018). The gender legacy of the Mao era : women's life stories in contemporary China. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-7062-7. OCLC 1048747933.
8. "A Suspended Sky: Chinese Women's Changing Political Interests" (PDF). Department of Political Science, University of Iowa. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 August 2021. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
9. "Women hold up half the sky". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
10. "China Focus: Holding up half the sky? – People's Daily Online". People's Daily. Archived from the original on 2020-06-04. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
11. "Revisions to the 1980 Marriage Law", China since 1949, Routledge, p. 200, 2013-11-14, doi:10.4324/9781315833408-46, ISBN 978-1-315-83340-8, retrieved 2022-11-29
12. Ko, Dorothy (2007). Cinderella's sisters : a revisionist history of footbinding. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-94140-3. OCLC 816498682. Archived from the original on 2020-01-25. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
13. ^ 高雨莘 (2017-09-26). "毛泽东时代，妇女真的"能顶半边天"吗？". 纽约时报中文网 (in Chinese). Retrieved 2022-11-29.
14. "China wants women to stay home and bear children". The Economist. November 9, 2023. ISSN 0013-0613. Archived from the original on 2023-11-13. Retrieved 2023-11-14.
15. Wu (2009), p. 86.
16. Keightley (1999), p. 2.
17. Hershatter, Gail (2018). Women and China's revolutions. Lanham, Maryland: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 3–4. ISBN 9781442215702.
18. Lee, M. H. (2012). "The one-child policy and gender equality in education in China: Evidence from household data". Journal of Family and Economic Issues. 33: 41–52. doi:10.1007/s10834-011-9277-9. S2CID 145217120.
19. Wiesner-Hanks, Merry (2011). Gender in history: global perspectives (2nd ed.). Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 29–30. ISBN 9781405189958.
20. ^ Rodriguez, Sarah Mellors (2023). Reproductive Realities in Modern China: Birth Control and Abortion, 1911-2021. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-009-02733-5. OCLC 1366057905.
21. Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 47. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755. Archived from the original on 2023-12-31. Retrieved 2023-02-07.
22. Margaret E. Keck; Kathryn Sikkink (1998). Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Cornell University Press. p. 64. ISBN 0801484561.
23. Hershatter, Gail (2018). Women and China's Revolutions. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 57. ISBN 9781442215702.
24. Lee, Lily Xiao Hong (2016-07-08). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: v. 2: Twentieth Century. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-49924-6.
25. ^ Karl, Rebecca E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history. Durham : Duke University Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-8223-4780-4. OCLC 503828045. Archived from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
26. Karl, Rebecca E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history. Durham : Duke University Press. pp. 16–17. ISBN 978-0-8223-4780-4. OCLC 503828045. Archived from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
27. ^ Karl, Rebecca E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history. Durham : Duke University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-8223-4780-4. OCLC 503828045. Archived from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
28. Hershatter, G. (2018). Women and China's Revolutions. USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
29. Spakowski, Nicola; Milwertz, Cecilia Nathansen (2006). Women and Gender in Chinese Studies. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 978-3-8258-9304-0.
30. Lin, Chun (2006). The transformation of Chinese socialism. Durham : Duke University Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-8223-3785-0. OCLC 63178961. Archived from the original on 2023-03-07. Retrieved 2022-11-18.
31. ^ Karl, Rebecca E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history. Durham : Duke University Press. pp. 22–23. ISBN 978-0-8223-4780-4. OCLC 503828045. Archived from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
32. Karl, Rebecca E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history. Durham : Duke University Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-8223-4780-4. OCLC 503828045. Archived from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
33. ^ Opper, Marc (2020). People's Wars in China, Malaya, and Vietnam. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. doi:10.3998/mpub.11413902. hdl:20.500.12657/23824. ISBN 978-0-472-90125-8. JSTOR 10.3998/mpub.11413902. S2CID 211359950. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-01-18. Retrieved 2023-09-08.
34. ^ Karl, Rebecca E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history. Durham : Duke University Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-8223-4780-4. OCLC 503828045. Archived from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
35. Ching, Pao-Yu (2021). Revolution and counterrevolution : China's continuing class struggle since liberation (2nd ed.). Paris: Foreign languages press. pp. 338–343. ISBN 978-2-491182-89-2. OCLC 1325647379. Archived from the original on 2023-03-26. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
36. ^ Cai, Xiang; 蔡翔 (2016). Revolution and its narratives : China's socialist literary and cultural imaginaries (1949-1966). Rebecca E. Karl, Xueping Zhong, 钟雪萍. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-7461-9. OCLC 932368688.
37. ^ Ching, Pao-Yu (2021). Revolution and counterrevolution : China's continuing class struggle since liberation (2nd ed.). Paris: Foreign languages press. p. 338. ISBN 978-2-491182-89-2. OCLC 1325647379. Archived from the original on 2023-03-26. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
38. Karl, Rebecca E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history. Durham : Duke University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-8223-4780-4. OCLC 503828045. Archived from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
39. DeMare, Brian James (2019). Land wars : the story of China's agrarian revolution. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. pp. 140–141. ISBN 978-1-5036-0849-8. OCLC 1048940018.
40. ^ DeMare, Brian James (2019). Land wars : the story of China's agrarian revolution. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p. 141. ISBN 978-1-5036-0849-8. OCLC 1048940018.
41. DeMare, Brian James (2019). Land wars : the story of China's agrarian revolution. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-1-5036-0849-8. OCLC 1048940018.
42. Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
43. Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 64–65. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
44. Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
45. ^ Engel, John W. (November 1984). "Marriage in the People's Republic of China: Analysis of a New Law". Journal of Marriage and Family. 46 (4): 955–961. doi:10.2307/352547. JSTOR 352547.
46. ^ Santos, Gonçalo (2021). Chinese Village Life Today: Building Families in an Age of Transition. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-74738-5.
47. ^ Li, Xiaorong (1995). Gender Inequality in China and Cultural Relativismin Women, Culture and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 407–425.
48. Xu, Youwei; Wang, Y. Yvon (2022). Everyday Lives in China's Cold War Military Industrial Complex: Voices from the Shanghai Small Third Front, 1964-1988. Palgrave MacMillan. p. 361. ISBN 9783030996871.
49. ^ Karl, Rebecca E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history. Durham : Duke University Press. pp. 104–105. ISBN 978-0-8223-4780-4. OCLC 503828045. Archived from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
50. ^ Hou, Li (2021). Building for Oil: Daqing and the Formation of the Chinese Socialist State. Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center. p. 215. ISBN 978-0-674-26022-1.
51. Karl, Rebecca E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history. Durham : Duke University Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-8223-4780-4. OCLC 503828045. Archived from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
52. Li, Jie (2022). "Mobile Projectionists and the Things They Carried". In Altehenger, Jennifer; Ho, Denise Y. (eds.). Material Contradictions in Mao's China. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-75085-9.
53. Xu, Youwei; Wang, Y. Yvon (2022). Everyday Lives in China's Cold War Military Industrial Complex: Voices from the Shanghai Small Front, 1964-1988. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 9783030996871.
54. ^ Karl, Rebecca E. (2010). Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world : a concise history. Durham : Duke University Press. p. 148. ISBN 978-0-8223-4780-4. OCLC 503828045. Archived from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
55. ^ Tamney, J. B., & Chiang, L.H. (2002). Modernization, Globalization, and Confucianism in Chinese Societies. Westport, CT: Praeger.
56. Parish, William L.; Whyte, Martin King (1978). "Village and Family in Contemporary China". The Journal of Asian Studies. 39 (3). Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press: 567–569. doi:10.2307/2054697. ISSN 0021-9118. JSTOR 2054697. S2CID 163821809.
57. ^ Lin, Chun (2006). The transformation of Chinese socialism. Durham : Duke University Press. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-8223-3785-0. OCLC 63178961. Archived from the original on 2023-03-07. Retrieved 2022-11-18.
58. ^ Wang, Vivian (September 8, 2024). "In Rural China, 'Sisterhoods' Demand Justice, and Cash". The New York Times. Retrieved September 8, 2024.
59. "China says employers can't ask women if they want kids – Inkstone". Inkstonenews.com. Archived from the original on 2019-10-13. Retrieved 2019-02-25.
60. Yao, E. L. (1983). Chinese Women: Past & Present (p. 17). Mesquite, TX: Ide House, Inc.
61. Chen, Guo-ming (2002). Chinese conflict management and resolution. Ablex Publishing. pp. 289–292.
62. ^ Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
63. Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 49–50. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
64. ^ Zibang, Xiao (3 November 2022). "China Tells Women to 'Respect Family Values' in Revised Law". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 31 July 2024. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
65. ^ Jung, Chauncey. "With New Divorce Rule, China Further Pushes 'Family Values'". thediplomat.com. The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 17 June 2020. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
66. Chen, Elsie; Wee, Sui-Lee (2021-02-27). "China Tried to Slow Divorces by Making Couples Wait. Instead, They Rushed". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2021-03-02.
67. Oppenheim, Maya (2024-10-31). "China calling women to ask when their last period was in birth rate push". The Independent. Retrieved 2024-11-13.
68. Boyd, Alexander (2024-10-24). "Local Officials Call Women to Ask: "Are You Pregnant?"". China Digital Times. Retrieved 2024-11-13.
69. McCartney, Micah (2024-11-01). "Chinese officials quiz women on phone as birth rate declines". Newsweek. Retrieved 2024-11-13.
70. ^ Jeffreys, Elaine (2006). Sex and Sexuality in China. Routledge. ISBN 9781134144525.
71. Hershatter, Gail (2019). Women and China's revolutions. Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield. p. 9. ISBN 9781442215702.
72. ^ Folsom, Ralph Haughwout (1989). Law in the People's Republic of China: Commentary, Readings, and Materials. Dordrecht: M. Nijhoff Publishers.
73. ^ Johnson, Kay Ann. Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Archived from the original on 2022-06-18. Retrieved 2023-02-24.
74. USC US-China Institute, "Divorce is increasingly common" "US-China Institute :: Divorce is increasingly common". Archived from the original on 2014-02-19. Retrieved 2009-10-11. (accessed 26 February 2012)
75. Cai, Yineng (Nov 26, 2021). "Want a Divorce? In China, Try, Try Again" Archived 2023-03-14 at the Wayback Machine. Sixth Tone.
76. ^ "Civil Code of the People's Republic of China". english.www.gov.cn. Retrieved 2022-12-01.
77. ^ 王淑卿. "Cooling-off period for divorce supported by legal experts". global.chinadaily.com.cn. Retrieved 2022-12-01.
78. "China divorces drop 70% after controversial 'cooling off' law". the Guardian. 2021-05-18. Retrieved 2022-12-01.
79. Suowei Xiao (2011). "The "Second-Wife" Phenomenon and the Relational Construction of Class-Coded Masculinities in Contemporary China". Men and Masculinities. 14 (5): 607–627. doi:10.1177/1097184X11412171. S2CID 143189524.
80. ^ Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
81. ^ Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 121. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
82. ^ Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 120–121. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
83. 王利明 (2001). 婚姻法修改中的若干问题. 法学 (in Chinese). 2001 (March): 45–51.
84. ^ C. Simon Fan & Hon-Kwong Liu (2004). "Extramarital affairs, marital satisfaction, and divorce: Evidence from Hong Kong". Contemporary Economic Policy. 22 (4): 442–452. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.604.1549. doi:10.1093/cep/byh033.
85. Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
86. ^ Graeme Lang & Josephine Smart (2002). "Migration and the "Second Wife" in South China: Toward Cross-Border Polygyny". International Migration Review. 36 (2): 546–569. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2002.tb00092.x. S2CID 143757210.
87. 比奇汉娜 (2007). "中国的离婚现象". 国外社会科学文摘 (in Chinese).
88. ^ Shen, Hsui-hua (2008). "Becoming 'the First Wives': Gender, Intimacy and the Regional Economy across the Taiwan Strait". East Asian Sexualities: Modernity Gender and New Sexual Cultures. Zed. pp. 216–235. ISBN 9781842778883.
89. ^ Bauer, John; Feng, Wang; Riley, Nancy E.; Xiaohua, Zhao (July 1992). "Gender inequality in urban China". Modern China. 18 (3): 333–370. doi:10.1177/009770049201800304. S2CID 144214400.
90. ^ Jin, Keyu (2023). The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism. New York: Viking. ISBN 978-1-9848-7828-1.
91. ^ Hong, Lawrence K. (1976). "The Role of Women in the People's Republic of China: Legacy and Change". Social Problems. 23 (5): 545–57. doi:10.2307/800477. JSTOR 800477. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2012.
92. ^ Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
93. Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 42–43. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
94. ^ Lary, Diana (2022). China's grandmothers : gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-009-06478-1. OCLC 1292532755.
95. Wang, Baohua; He, Minfu; Chao, Ann; Engelgau, Michael; Saraiya, Mona; Wang, Limin; Wang, Linhong (June 2015). "Cervical Cancer Screening Among Adult Women in China, 2010". The Oncologist. 10 (6): 627–634. doi:10.1634/theoncologist.2014-0303. PMC 4571778. PMID 25956407. S2CID 6530896.
96. Miller, Claire Cain; Sanger-Katz, Margot (2022-01-22). "On Abortion Law, the U.S. Is Unusual. Without Roe, It Would Be, Too". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2022-06-23. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
97. "Is abortion legal in China, how common is it and why is it controversial?". South China Morning Post. 2022-06-19. Archived from the original on 2022-10-26. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
98. ^ Master, Farah; Zhang, Albee (2022-08-16). "China to discourage abortions to boost low birth rate". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2022-08-16. Retrieved 2022-08-16.
99. Allen-Ebrahimian, Bethany (July 17, 2015). "China: The Best and the Worst Place to Be a Muslim Woman". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on September 9, 2016. Retrieved June 19, 2018.
100. ^ Jaschok, Maria (2000). The History of Women's Mosques in Chinese Islam. Routledge. ISBN 978-0700713028.
101. ^ Hultvall, John (1981). Mission och revolution i Centralasien [Mission and Revolution in Central Asia The MCCS Mission Work in Eastern Turkestan 1892–1938] (PDF). Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia XXXV. Translated by Åhman, Birgitta. Stockholm: Gummessons. p. 1. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
102. "Why does China have women-only mosques". BBC. 23 February 2016. Archived from the original on 6 May 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
103. Abdullah, Aslam (2 February 2015). "First Women only Mosque in America". islamicity. Archived from the original on 20 August 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
104. "Female Imams Blaze Trail Amid China's Muslims". NPR. Archived from the original on 2023-04-16. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
105. "Muslim women do it their way in Ningxia – Taipei Times". www.taipeitimes.com. 2006-12-20. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
106. Lim, Louisa (2004-09-15), "Chinese Muslims forge isolated path", BBC News, archived from the original on 2008-05-14, retrieved 2008-08-05
107. Ahmad Hasan Dani; Vadim Mikhaĭlovich Masson; Unesco (1 January 2003). History of Civilizations of Central Asia: Development in contrast: from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. UNESCO. pp. 356–. ISBN 978-92-3-103876-1.
108. Abdurishid Yakup (2005). The Turfan Dialect of Uyghur. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 189–. ISBN 978-3-447-05233-7.
109. AACAR Bulletin of the Association for the Advancement of Central Asian Research. The Association. 1991. p. 38.
110. Hultvall, John (1981). Mission och revolution i Centralasien [Mission and Revolution in Central Asia The MCCS Mission Work in Eastern Turkestan 1892–1938] (PDF). Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia XXXV. Translated by Åhman, Birgitta. Stockholm: Gummessons. p. 10. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
111. Hultvall, John (1981). Mission och revolution i Centralasien [Mission and Revolution in Central Asia The MCCS Mission Work in Eastern Turkestan 1892–1938] (PDF). Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia XXXV. Translated by Åhman, Birgitta. Stockholm: Gummessons. p. 11. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
112. Hultvall, John (1981). Mission och revolution i Centralasien [Mission and Revolution in Central Asia The MCCS Mission Work in Eastern Turkestan 1892–1938] (PDF). Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia XXXV. Translated by Åhman, Birgitta. Stockholm: Gummessons. p. 17. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
113. Hultvall, John (1981). Mission och revolution i Centralasien [Mission and Revolution in Central Asia The MCCS Mission Work in Eastern Turkestan 1892–1938] (PDF). Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia XXXV. Translated by Åhman, Birgitta. Stockholm: Gummessons. p. 18. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
114. Hultvall, John (1981). Mission och revolution i Centralasien Svenska Missionsförbundets mission i Ostturkestan 1892–1938 [Mission and Change in Eastern Turkestan] (PDF). Translated by Åhman, Birgitta. Stockholm: Gummessons Heart of Asia Ministries, PO Box 1. Erskine, Renfrewshire, Scotland, June 1987 Revised version, MCCS, Sweden, 2004. p. 19. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2005-10-31. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
115. Chen, C. C., and Frederica M. Bunge. Medicine in Rural China : A Personal Account. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
116. Jiali, Li (September 1995). "China's One-Child Policy: How and How Well Has it Worked? A Case Study of Hebei Province, 1979–88". Population and Development Review. 21 (3): 563–585. doi:10.2307/2137750. JSTOR 2137750.
117. ^ Palmer, Michael (September 2007). "Transforming Family Law in Post-Deng China: Marriage, Divorce and Reproduction". The China Quarterly. 191: 675–695. doi:10.1017/S0305741007001658. S2CID 153658208.
118. "Top legislature amends law to allow all couples to have two children – Xinhua | English.news.cn". 2017-10-10. Archived from the original on 2017-10-10. Retrieved 2022-07-18.
119. "Explainer: What was China's one-child policy?". BBC News. 29 October 2015. Archived from the original on 24 December 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
120. "China allows three children in major policy shift". BBC News. 2021-05-31. Archived from the original on 2021-06-09. Retrieved 2022-07-18.
121. Cheng, Evelyn (2021-07-21). "China scraps fines, will let families have as many children as they'd like". CNBC. Archived from the original on 2023-01-28. Retrieved 2022-07-18.
122. Zhou, Chi; Wang, Xiao Lei; Zhou, Xu Dong; Hesketh, Therese (June 2012). "Son preference and sex-selective abortion in China: informing policy options". International Journal of Public Health. 57 (3): 459–465. doi:10.1007/s00038-011-0267-3. ISSN 1661-8556. PMID 21681450. S2CID 22228937.
123. Sen, Amartya. "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing?" New York Review of Books Vol. 37, No. 20 (1990).
124. Nie, Jing-Bao (February 2010). "Limits of state intervention in sex-selective abortion: the case of China". Culture, Health & Sexuality. 12 (2): 205–219. doi:10.1080/13691050903108431. ISSN 1369-1058. PMID 19657805. S2CID 1021202.
125. "Sex Ratios at Birth in China" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 18, 2006. Retrieved 2008-04-16.
126. Anagnost, Ann Stasia (1988). "Family Violence and Magical Violence: The Woman as Victim in China's One-Child Family Policy". Women and Language. 11 (2): 486–502.
127. See the CIA report "Sex ratio". The ratio in South Korea reached as high as 116:100 in the early 1990s but since then has moved substantially back toward a normal range, with a ratio of 107:100 in 2005. See "Where Boys Were Kings, a Shift Toward Baby Girls". The New York Times. December 24, 2007.
128. For a study in China that revealed under-reporting or delayed reporting of female births, see M. G. Merli and A. E. Raftery. 1990. "Are births underreported in rural China? Manipulation of statistical records in response to China's population policies", Demography 37 (February): 109–126.
129. ^ "Thousands at risk of forced sterilization in China". Amnesty International. Archived from the original on 2013-05-29. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
130. ^ "Why Chinese women are denied legal land rights". The Economist. August 10, 2023. ISSN 0013-0613. Archived from the original on 2023-08-15. Retrieved 2023-08-16. Individual villages and co-operatives can and do take collective rights away from women who marry outsiders. Many such women lose their rights, though their household registration, or hukou, remains lodged with their birth village. Some women are disowned even after returning to the house where they were born, perhaps coming home to care for ageing parents, or after being widowed or divorced.
131. Birge, Bettine. Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction in Sung and Yuan China (960–1368). Cambridge University Press, 2002.
132. ^ McCreery, John L (1976). "Women's property rights and dowry in China and South Asia". Ethnology. 15 (2): 163–174. doi:10.2307/3773327. JSTOR 3773327.
133. ^ Bernhardt, Kathryn. Women and property in China, 960–1949. Stanford University Press, 1999.
134. ^ Ocko, Jonathan K. (1991). "Women, property, and law in the People's Republic of China". Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society. 12: 313. doi:10.1525/california/9780520069305.003.0011. ISBN 9780520069305.
135. ^ Davis, Deborah (2010). "Who gets the house? Renegotiating property rights in post-socialist urban China". Modern China. 36 (5): 463–492. doi:10.1177/0097700410373265. S2CID 154486536.
136. Hare, Denise; Yang, Li; Englander, Daniel (2007). "Land management in rural China and its gender implications". Feminist Economics. 13 (3–4): 35–61. doi:10.1080/13545700701445298. S2CID 153499070.
137. Chen, Junjie; Summerfield, Gale (2007). "Gender and rural reforms in China: A case study of population control and land rights policies in northern Liaoning". Feminist Economics. 13 (3–4): 63–92. doi:10.1080/13545700701439440. S2CID 154606954.
138. "Women's Movement and Change of Women's Status in China". Archived from the original on May 15, 2013. Retrieved 2012-10-31.
139. ^ Chen, C.C.; Yu, KC; Miner, JB (1997). "Motivation to Manage: A Study of Women in Chinese State-Owned Enterprises". The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. 33 (2): 160. doi:10.1177/0021886397332006. S2CID 144290033.
140. ^ Sung, Sisi (2022). The Economics of Gender in China: Women, Work and the Glass Ceiling. Routledge studies in gender and economics. London New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003307563. ISBN 978-1-032-30994-1.
141. Matthews, Rebecca and Victor Nee. Gender inequality and economic growth in rural China, Social Science Research, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2000): 606–632.
142. Rawski, Thomas G.; Robert W. Mead (1998). "On the trail to China's phatom farmers". World Development. 26 (5): 776–781. doi:10.1016/S0305-750X(98)00012-6.
143. ^ Davin, Delia (1976). Woman-Work: Women and the Party in Revolutionary China. p. 115. Oxford: Clarendon.
144. Rasul, G; G. B. Thapa (2003). "Shifting cultivation in the mountains of South and Southeast Asia: regional patterns and factors influencing the change". Land Degradation & Development. 14 (5): 495–508. Bibcode:2003LDeDe..14..495R. doi:10.1002/ldr.570. S2CID 128897922.
145. Boserup, Ester (1970). Women's Role in Economic Development Oxford: Allen and Unwin. (accessed on 10 March 2012)
146. ^ Lin, Shuanglin (2022). China's Public Finance: Reforms, Challenges, and Options. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-009-09902-8.
147. Lee, Eliza W.Y. (2003). Gender and Change in Hong Kong: Globalization, Postcolonialism, and Chinese Patriarchy.pp. 1–224. UBC Press,ISBN 0-7748-0994-9, ISBN 978-0-7748-0994-8
148. Fujita, Masahisa; Hu, Dapeng (18 February 2001). "Regional disparity in China 1985–1994: The effects of globalization and economic liberalization". The Annals of Regional Science. 35 (1): 3–37. Bibcode:2001ARegS..35....3F. doi:10.1007/s001680000020. S2CID 154813469.
149. ^ ""Dagongmei" - Female Migrant Labourers". China Labour Bulletin. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
150. Cooke, Fang. "Equal opportunity? The role of legislation and public policies in women's employment in China", Women In Management Review, Vol. 16, No. 7 (2001): 334–348.
151. Tatlow, Didi Kirsten. Tatlow, Didi Kirsten (25 November 2010). "For China's Women, More Opportunities, More Pitfalls". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 April 2014. nytimes.com, 25 November 2010 (accessed 22 February 2012)
152. ^ Liu, Lizhi (2024). From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-Commerce in China. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691254104.
153. Otis, Eileen. (2011). Markets and Bodies: Women, service work, and the making of inequality in China. Stanford University Press.
154. Hizi, Gil (8 August 2018). "Gendered Self-Improvement: Autonomous Personhood and the Marriage Predicament of Young Women in Urban China". The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology. 19 (4): 298–315. doi:10.1080/14442213.2018.1481881. S2CID 149953461.
155. "China home to 61% of world's self-made woman billionaires | The Star". www.thestar.com.my. Archived from the original on 2021-01-23. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
156. "More than half of self-made female billionaires are Chinese". Nikkei Asian Review. Archived from the original on 2020-11-07. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
157. "Entrepreneurship in China: The Rise of Female Billionaires". www.newswise.com. Archived from the original on 2021-01-14. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
158. "China dominates self-made woman rich list". BBC News. 2018-03-08. Archived from the original on 2020-11-09. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
159. "Entrepreneurship in China: The Rise of Female Billionaires". Darden Ideas to Action. Archived from the original on 2020-11-14. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
160. ^ Marquis, Christopher; Qiao, Kunyuan (2022). Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise. Kunyuan Qiao. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-26883-6. OCLC 1348572572.
161. ^ DeMare, Brian James (2019). Land wars : the story of China's agrarian revolution. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. pp. 62–63. ISBN 978-1-5036-0849-8. OCLC 1048940018.
162. ^ DeMare, Brian James (2019). Land wars : the story of China's agrarian revolution. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p. 63. ISBN 978-1-5036-0849-8. OCLC 1048940018.
163. Didi Kirsten Tatlow (24 June 2010). "Women Struggle for a Foothold in Chinese Politics". New York Times. Archived from the original on 2021-01-20. Retrieved 2010-06-24.
164. Judd, Ellen R. (2002). The Chinese Women's Movement. Private Collection: Stanford University Press. p. 175. ISBN 0-8047-4406-8.
165. Phillips, Tom (14 October 2017). "In China women 'hold up half the sky' but can't touch the political glass ceiling". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 14 December 2018. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
166. Doyon, Jérôme (2023). Rejuvenating Communism: Youth Organizations and Elite Renewal in Post-Mao China. University of Michigan Press. doi:10.3998/mpub.12291596. ISBN 978-0-472-90294-1.
167. "3.8妇女节 | 性别平等：撬动村庄变革的支点 – 三农议题 人民食物主权". 2021-03-07. Archived from the original on 2021-03-07. Retrieved 2022-04-13.
168. ^ U.S. Department of State. "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2006: China, (2007)". (accessed on February 16, 2012). Archived 2020-10-20 at the Wayback Machine
169. McCue, Margi Laird (2008). Domestic violence: a reference handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 100–102.
170. "权威发布 – 中华人民共和国最高人民法院". 2022-07-18. Archived from the original on 2022-07-18. Retrieved 2022-07-18.
171. ^ "Domestic violence guideline provides enhanced safeguards". 2022-07-18. Archived from the original on 2022-07-18. Retrieved 2022-07-18.
172. "How China keeps its streets safe for women". cnbctv18.com. Archived from the original on 2019-12-30. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
173. ^ "唐山打人事件：不是「惡性暴力」，而是「女性屠殺」". theinitium.com. Archived from the original on 2022-12-01. Retrieved 2022-12-01.
174. Sophie Jeong (2022-06-12). "Video of women being brutally attacked sparks public outrage in China". CNN. Archived from the original on 2022-06-21. Retrieved 2022-12-01.
175. "性別暴力的中國式治理難題：父權制催生的「黑惡勢力」，無法被父權本身所清除". theinitium.com. Archived from the original on 2022-12-01. Retrieved 2022-12-01.
176. "Painful Memories of China's Footbinding Survivors" Archived 2019-11-02 at the Wayback Machine. 19 March 2007. NPR.
177. Hershatter, Gail (2019). Women and China's Revolutions. Rowman and Littlefield. p. 68.
178. Hershatter, Gail (2019). Women and China's Revolutions. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 68. ISBN 978-1-4422-1568-9.
179. Ching, Pao-Yu (2021). Revolution and counterrevolution : China's continuing class struggle since liberation (2nd ed.). Paris: Foreign languages press. p. 337. ISBN 978-2-491182-89-2. OCLC 1325647379. Archived from the original on 2023-03-26. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
180. Blake, C. Fred (1994). "Foot-Binding in Neo-Confucian China and the Appropriation of Female Labor". Signs. 19 (3): 676–712. doi:10.1086/494917. JSTOR 3174774. S2CID 40841025.
181. Ko, Dorothy (2007-12-17). Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520253902.
182. ^ Ditmore, Melissa Hope (2006). Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work, Volume 2. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 438–442.
183. Hershatter, Gail (2018). Woman and China's Revolutions. ProQuest Ebook Central: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 242. ISBN 978-1-4422-1570-2.
184. ^ "UNIAP | no-trafficking.org | The Trafficking Situation in China". 2011-03-05. Archived from the original on 2011-03-05. Retrieved 2022-12-01.
185. ^ "Bride Trafficking and The Chinese Gender Gap - Peace for Asia". 2021-04-05. Archived from the original on 2022-12-01. Retrieved 2022-12-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
186. Susan W. Tiefenbrun (2008). "Gendercide and the cultural context of sex trafficking in China". ExpressO. Archived from the original on 14 November 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
187. ^ Feingold, David A. (September–October 2005). "Human Trafficking". Foreign Policy (150): 26–30. JSTOR 30048506. (accessed on 25 February 2012)
188. ^ Cao, Aowen; Feng, Emily (2022-02-17). "The mystery of the chained woman in China". NPR. Archived from the original on 2022-02-19. Retrieved 2022-12-01.
189. "Notice by the General Office of the State Council of Issuing China's Action Plan against Human Abduction and Trafficking (2021-2030)". www.lawinfochina.com. Retrieved 2022-12-01.
190. 桥 (2022-02-04). "【404档案馆】第69期：中国政府在人口贩卖上的作为——从徐州被绑八孩母亲案说起". 中国数字时代 (in Chinese (China)). Retrieved 2022-12-01.
191. ^ "生了八個孩子的女人，人們說她瘋了：豐縣事件和一場對拐賣婦女的輿論清算". theinitium.com. Archived from the original on 2022-02-07. Retrieved 2022-12-01.

Works cited

• Keightley, David N. (1999). "At the beginning: the status of women in Neolithic and Shang China". NAN NÜ. 1 (1): 1–63. doi:10.1163/156852699X00054.
• Wu 吴, Xiaohua 晓华 (2009). "周代男女角色定位及其对现代社会的影响" [Role orientation of men and women in the Zhou Dynasty and their effects on modern society]. Chang'An Daxue Xuebao (Shehui Kexue Ban) (in Chinese). 11 (3): 86–92.

Further reading

• Resources in your library
• Resources in other libraries

• Women in the People's Republic of China (Country Briefing Paper) (pdf doc.) by the Asian Development Bank (Pub. Date: 1998)
• BURTON, MARGARET E. Notable Women of Modern China
• King, Dean (2010). Unbound: A True Story of War, Love, and Survival. Little, Brown and Company. pp. 432 pages. ISBN 978-0-316-16708-6.
• Lee, Lily Xiao Hong; Stefanowska, A. D., eds. (2007). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: Antiquity Through Sui, 1600 B.C.E.-618 C.E. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0765641823. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
• Lee, Lily Xiao Hong; Stefanowska, A. D.; Ho, Clara Wing-chung, eds. (1998). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: The Qing Period, 1644-1911. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0765618276. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
• Karl, Rebecca E. (2011). "The State of Chinese Women's History". Gender & History. 23 (2): 430–441. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0424.2011.01647.x. S2CID 145575848.
• Wang Zheng, Finding Women in the State: A Socialist Feminist Revolution in the People's Republic of China, 1949–1964. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017 ISBN 9780520292291
• Yinhe, Li《中国女性的性与爱》(Sexuality and Love of Chinese Women), Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1996.
• Yinhe, Li《女性权力的崛起》(Rising Power of the Women), Chinese Social Science Press, 1997.
• Yinhe, Li《中国女性的感情与性》(Sexuality and Love of Chinese Women), China Today Press, 1998.
• Helen Gao (September 25, 2017). "How Did Women Fare in China's Communist Revolution?". The New York Times.

• Women in China
• Women by country