Women and work in contemporary China. The effect of market transition on women's employment, earnings, and status attainment

Abstract

Xiangqi was born in 1963, two years after the Great Famine, in a Chinese village. She lived in a rural house with her parents and her younger brother. From a young age, she shared household chores with her mother. Every day, she woke up before the sunrise, fed the pigs and the chicken, made breakfast, and prepared for school. Growing up, she remembers constantly being hungry and looking for things to eat. After primary school, she was accepted into a township-level secondary school and then a high school, where she was among the top students.In 1980, three years after the restoration of China's higher education system, Xiangqi took the national college entrance exam. Only one student from her school passed the exam; she did not. Therefore, she started to work. As a high school graduate, she was assigned to a collectively owned department store in town working as a clerk. Ten years later, when she was 27, she got married, and one year later, her daughter was born. The department store provided Xiangqi and her family a small one-bedroom apartment. She took care of the child mostly by herself while working full-time, and it was challenging.Her husband was rarely home; he was busy riding his motorcycle from place to place, discussing business with other people. When her child was nine, the family purchased an apartment in the city. In 2001, they moved to the city and transferred her child to a better school there. Shortly thereafter, her husband and she discussed whether she should stop working. Xiangqi felt that her child needed care, that the department store was not well run, and that she would be laid off soon. She applied for early retirement with no compensation and stopped working. The department store disappeared a few years after they moved, as did the small one-bedroom apartment.Xiangqi is my mother. Her life trajectory resembles what many Chinese women have experienced. Table 1.1 provides an overview of important historical events that have occurred in China. In 1949, the People's Republic of China was established. The era after the establishment of China can be divided into a period of high socialism and a period of reform. The period of high socialism was between 1949 and 1977, when all resources, such as land and labor, were organized and redistributed by the government. All Socialist countries, including China, interpreted women's emancipation in the same way, according to Marxism. Women's work outside of the household was thought to be essential to their liberation. Therefore, the state made great efforts to ensure gender equality in the public sphere in China. For example, policies on labor rights and "equal work, equal pay" were implemented, and gender equality propaganda was widespread. Infrastructures, such as public childcare facilities, were built to enable women to work full-time. Both men and women were assigned to jobs, and differences in wages and wealth among people were minimal. As a consequence, the labor force participation rate of women in China, as well 2 Throughout this dissertation, ...