Women in China - Building Gender Balanced Business

BY MARIA CARDINES

Four Chinese business women appear in the Forbes Magazine’s 2008 list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women: Zhang Xin, co-founder and CEO of SOHO China; Yang Mian Mian, President of the Haier Group; Eva Cheng, Chief Executive of Amway (Greater China and Southeast Asia), and Jing Ulrich, Chairperson and Managing Director of JP Morgan Chase (China Equities).

All four of them are well known in the Chinese business community for their courage, determination, creative entrepreneurship and ability to take advantage of China’s economic reform process. They are hailed as role models, particularly in the feminine press, and presented as the face of the new China. In a country where business has essentially been a man’s world, it is heartening to see that women are increasingly able to challenge deep-seated stereotypes.

The economic reforms of the early 1980s and the gradual transition to a market economy have been accompanied by an expansion of the private sector and an increased emphasis on entrepreneurship, as an essential aspect of economic growth. A large number of women, particularly the better educated, have been able to seize the opportunities afforded by the new economic climate and some of them have obtained impressive results.

“Some of them admitted to sleeping only four hours per night, which allowed them to reconcile work as CEO of large firms and an often demanding family life.”

In the autumn of 2006, while working in Beijing, I met with representatives of the China Association of Women Entrepreneurs (CAWE), an organization founded in 1985 to advocate and foster greater involvement of women in business. I was impressed by its members’ confidence, competence and energy. Some of them admitted to sleeping only four hours per night, which allowed them to reconcile work as CEO of large firms and an often demanding family life.

However, the longer I spent in their company the more I realized that I was dealing with a privileged minority for whom family background, Party membership and the transformation and restructuring of state-owned enterprises had played a major role. The number of business women has been growing steadily particularly in the last two decades, and women now represent about 20% of all entrepreneurs in China; however, most of the businesses run by women are micro, small or medium-sized enterprises.

Nationally, only 0.7% of women occupy managerial positions, as compared to 2.5% of men. The difference is even more striking in urban areas where 1.7% of women are managers, as compared to 5.5% of men.

Major obstacles still prevent women from running their own business or moving into higher management. These obstacles are essentially cultural, resulting from traditional values and received ideas about the place that women and men occupy in the family and in society. Although traditional values have been shaken by the economic and social changes of the past thirty years, some habits and mental attitudes die hard. The business world remains essentially male and women generally lack the social network and financial clout to make strides into it. Banks and financial institutions are generally unwilling to grant loans to women who want to start their own business, hence they have to rely on their own savings or those of their family and friends. Employers are reluctant to hire young women or promote them to a position of responsibility since they fear that they might take too much time off to start and take care of their family.

“The business world remains essentially male and women generally lack the social network and financial clout to make strides into it.”

It is often argued that women are disadvantaged because of their lower educational level compared to men. While this might have been true in the past, and still applies in the countryside where families are keener to invest in the education of boys, it is hardly a plausible explanation in the context of the contemporary Chinese urban economy and high educational levels for boys and girls alike. A 2004 survey carried out among college students clearly shows a general and pronounced reluctance of employers to recruit female university graduates. When they are recruited, young women are often assigned to less skilled and lower paid jobs even when they have the same qualification and work experience as male students.

Chinese society is, however, changing rapidly and women, particularly the younger and better educated, are determined to reach the professional and personal goals they have set for themselves. In this context the images of successful business women publicized in the media might just be a foretaste of things to come.

All-China Women’s Federation
China Association of Women Entrepreneurs

Maria Cardines took an MA in Russian at the University of Naples and an MPhil (DESS) in Asian Studies, with Chinese language, at Geneva University. An experienced linguist and project evaluator, she has worked as a consultant for several international organizations, and has published research on the situation of women in Russia, Scotland and China.

In the autumn 2006, she spent a few months at the ILO Beijing office working on a project for the prevention of trafficking in girls and young women for labour and sexual exploitation, and carrying out research on internal migration in China. She has recently completed a study on Chinese women migrants.