China's women are 46% its workforce
- By Pang Li
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China.org.cn, November 29, 2011
In China, women make up 49 percent of its population and 46 percent of its labor force, a higher proportion than in many Western countries, the Economist magazine reported.
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China's women are 46% its workforce.[File photo] |
China is generally reckoned to be more open to women than other East Asian countries. Young women have been moving away from the countryside in droves and piling into the electronics factories in the booming coastal belt, earning more money than their parents ever dreamed of. Others have been pouring into universities, at home and abroad, and graduating in almost the same numbers as men.
Jobs with state-owned companies are popular with Chinese women because at lower levels these are relatively comfortable places to work, with shorter and more predictable hours than in the private sector.
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, a consultant firm manager, pointed out that China already has a higher proportion of women in the top layers of management than many Western countries.
China also boasts of 29 million female entrepreneurs, or a quarter of the national total, according to Meng Xiaosi, vice-president of the All-China Women's Federation. Seven of the 14 women on last year's Forbes worldwide list of self-made billionaires were from China.
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