Status of women in China

Commented [jr1]: Good work on your intro- there is a

Introduction
chronological movement that helps organize your writing.

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Gender inequality is a widely noticed social issue, and it remains a thorny problem for
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most Asian countries such as India and Bangladesh (the World Economic Forum

[WEF], 2016). As the largest Asian country, Chinas male preference has a long

history of male preference. Specifically, men were given more attention of their

parents and more chance to be educated, which was because men offered the main

financial support to their family in the old times. . At that time, however, women were

usually not employed, educated and their health were less cared about (Wang, 2005).

Until at least the 1950s, men offered main financial support to the family, while

women were doing chores at home.

Commented [jr2]: Mary- This is one of many areas in your

The competition for resources was particularly detrimental for girls in large families
paper that were copied directly from sources, with no effort
made to paraphrase.
and usually they didnt have chance to be educated (Wang, 2005). Additionally, the
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social safety net for women, such as medical insurance and fringe benefit, was

relatively weak.

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Do Has Chinese things changewomens status improved in the 21st century? This
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report evaluates womens status in China in the recent 20 years, focusing on economic

independence, education, economic independence and health. In general, China hasnt

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achieved gender equality. Despite the fact that women has reached a much higher

status than in the old times, China seems to be stuck on a kind of plateau where

gender inequality remains a thorny problem. The following statistics indicates that

although the gender inequality has markedly reduced, its still a serious problem.

Education

Totally different from the old times, China has now basically achieved gender equality

in education, thanks to the nine-year compulsory education implemented in the 1980s

(Hannum, 2005). One significant achievement is that more women are enrolling for

tertiary education than men. The female/male ratio in the tertiary education peaked at

1.16 in 2016, ranking the first in the world (WEF, 2016). Higher education will not

only raise womens social status but also benefit their childrens education.

Of note is that expenditure on supporting a college student is so heavy that it can be

more than 20 times the income of an impoverished family (Liu et al., 2011), and its

common in China for poor families to sacrifice daughters education because of the

traditional preference for sons (Chan et al., 2002). This can explain the low
Commented [jr3]: Good use of sources here; you
female/male ratio of enrollment for secondary education (WEF, 2016) as its not
synthesize a couple of pieces of data and draw a conclusion.
Well done!
mandatory. Therefore, although womens education is much better than before, it still
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needs improving.

Economic Independence

Although China is the second largest economy in the worldThe achievements in

education do not persist in the labor market., Chinese womens income and economic

participation and oopportunity are much less than mens, and hant show any

improvement in the past years. According to the World Economic Forum (2016)

(2016), the female/male earning ratio for similar work has keptremained at 64.9%

for at least 3 years. Thisis ratio implies that on average, most women earnare paid less

than two-thirds of what men earn for the same job. Besides lower wage, women are

less likely to have a career in management. Only 20% of women are legislators, senior

officials, and managers in 2016 (WEF, 2016). To address this situation, a substantial

portion of women are receiving further education as illustrated above, which is

regarded as an effective method of gaining a higher level of competence in the labor

market. However, Fang et al. (2012) have identified a noticeable gender disparity in

Commented [jr4]: the connection between these

returns to education. It means that women earn much less even though they have the
elements isnt clear.

same education background as men. while doing as well as men. Apparently, theres Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New Roman, 12 pt

still a long way to go for Chinese gender equality in the labor market.

Health and longevityBirth rate and health

In addition to education and economic, data shows that gender inequlity actually

happens before kids are born. With advanced reproduction techonologies, parents are

able to choose the gender of their kids, making it easier to practice gender

discrimination in early pregnancy (Chan et al., 2002). Mounting evidence has shown

that China may have the largest amount of missing women, indicating that its sex
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ratio at birth is fairly abnormal (Klasen, S., & Wink, C., 2002; Jiang, Q., et al, 2012).
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Even when girls are wanted and born, parents usually care more about boys.

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Kubo, M., & Chaudhuri, A. state that girls health deteriorates when they get a male

sibling. For example, girls who have brothers reach lower height-for-age. This is,

according to their research, due to male preference instead of resource limitaion

(2017).

Chinese womens health always ranks low in WEFs reports. Although Chinas

economy has grown extremely fast in the past decades, womens health level hasnt

improved that much. For example, accounting for 29% of the worlds total, 100000

new cervical cancer cases are recorded in China every year (Guo & Lin, 2012). This

may result from the difficulty in providing health care for the large population in

China, especially for women in remote rural areas. Still, its surprising to find that

Chinas gender equality in health always ranks lower than 114 among 144 countries in

the world (WEF, 2016).

Commented [jr5]: Good work overall on your conclusion.

Conclusion You echo your main points and broaden the conversation.

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Women are no worse than men when it comes to mental power which is more and

more valued in todays world. However,

The analysis above drives us to the conclusion that, in general, gender inequality still

prevails and prevents women from fulfilling their potential in most part of China.

Women are not equally paid for the same work as men, are not given the same

opportunity for education, not earning as much as men, and not of the same right

Commented [jr6]: This claim would be more strongly

to be born or cared for.enjoying the same health care Although some women are able
supported with one or two more support examples in the
body of your paper.
to receive tertiary education, there are thmany whose education are sacrificed for their
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brothers education. Ie problem of polarization n summary, cant be ignored. Commented [jr7]: Unclear meaning

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China still has a long way to when it comes to gender equality. Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New Roman, 12 pt
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