Chinese women hold up half of the sky (China Daily) Updated: 2005-08-25 08:41
Women and the economy
The State has made the guarantee of equal employment opportunities between
women and men and the sharing of economic resources and results of social
development the top priority for the advancement of gender equality and the
development of women, and has worked out and adopted a series of policies and
measures to ensure that women can equally participate in economic development,
enjoy equal access to economic resources and effective services, enhance their
self-development ability and improve their social and economic status.
Over the past few years, the Chinese Government has formulated and carried
out supportive policies to encourage women to start businesses on their own
initiative, and give them preferential treatment when granting employment
training subsidies and small-sum guaranteed loans and conducting tax reduction
and exemption. In the meantime, governments at all levels have adopted many
favourable policies toward women, such as creating public-welfare jobs, opening
employment service centres, sponsoring special recruitment activities and
vocational training courses, monitoring sex discrimination against women in
employment and helping women, especially laid-off women, to find new jobs.
Over the past few years, the tertiary industry has become the main channel
for providing jobs to women, and an increasing number of women are entering the
computer, communications, finance and insurance and other high- and new-tech
industries, thus becoming an important force in these fields. At present, women
owners of small and medium-sized enterprises account for about 20 per cent of
the national total number of entrepreneurs, and 60 per cent of them have emerged
in the past decade. By the end of 2004, women accounted for 43.6 per cent of the
total number of professionals and technicians in State-owned enterprises and
institutions nationwide, up 6.3 percentage points over the 37.3 per cent of
1995, among whom, the number of senior and intermediate-level women
professionals and technicians rose from 20.1 per cent and 33.4 per cent to 30.5
per cent and 42 per cent respectively.
China is basically an agricultural country, and women account for more than
60 per cent of the rural labour force and are a major force in farming
activities. The Law of the People's Republic of China on Rural Land Contracting,
which came into effect in 2003, states that women and men enjoy equal rights in
contracting land in rural areas, and no organization or individual shall deprive
women of their right to contract and operate land or infringe upon their right
to do so.
To actively promote gender equality in employment and raise women's ability
to find employment or start businesses, the Chinese Government has begun to
co-operate with the United Nations Development Programme, International Labour
Organization and other international organizations, with satisfactory results.
At present, it is accelerating, taking into account the national conditions of
China, the process for the approval of the UN's Discrimination (Employment and
Occupation) Convention in China.
|
 | | Model promots vegetarian food | | |  | | More educated, more DINK? | | |  | | Cui Jian: Real, Live and Coming to Beijing | | |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top Life
News |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|