CHALLENGES FOR CHINESE WOMEN EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

This anthology explores the causes and consequences of persistent gender-based inequalities in contemporary China. Through 13 chapters, it examines how gender inequality is shaped, reinforced, questioned and worked around in early 21st century China. This book covers areas such as the welfare system, labour market, land rights and divorce — areas in which equality between men and women is still inadequate in law and practice. The book also offers insights in less-explored areas such as the legal and bureaucratic rights of diverse families, migration and split households, grassroots labour organising, and self-determination and equality in the pursuit of Chinese socialist feminism. The introduction highlights the enduring role of the household registration system (hukou) as a tool to exercise power, control and coercion. Since the hukou system is based on households rather than individuals, it remains a powerful source of institutionalised reproduction of hierarchical power relations (i.e. patriarchal values). While focused on contemporary China, the introduction also situates gender inequality within a global context, showing how gender inequality is shaped and reinforced globally in the early 21st century.

Contents:

• Notes on Orientaliska Studier (Oriental Studies)
• Note on Names
• Acknowledgements
• About the Editor
• About the Contributors
• Timeline
• Acronyms
• Introduction (Gordana Malešević)
• Is the Sex Imbalance Demographically and Socially Sustainable? (Isabelle Attané)
• Gender-Related Inequalities in the Chinese Welfare State (Jing Yang and Xian Huang)
• How Gender Gaps in Education, Wages, and Pensions Have Developed since the End of the 1980s (Björn Gustafsson)
• Unveiling Barriers to Women's Leadership in Business (Sisi Sung)
• Beyond Assembly Lines: Factory Women Warriors and the Formation of Grassroots Labour Organising in South China (Anzi Dong)
• Migration, Marriage, and Split Households (C Cindy Fan)
• Inequalities Persist: Policies and Social Constructs in Women's Land Rights (Govind Kelkar and Ritu Agarwal)
• A Rare and Limited Victory: Anti-Domestic Violence Law and its Implementation (Feng Yuan and Hao Yang)
• Women and Divorce: Institutional Constraints and Outcomes, and Possible Ways Forward (Xin He and Huina Xiao)
• Diverse Families: Legal and Bureaucratic Rights, and Possibilities for Parental Recognition (Soojin Lee)
• Stigma, Mental Health Disparities, and Sexual and Gender Minority Women (Ying Xin and Darius Longarino)
• Adaptation and Resistance: The Phased Evolution of the Feminist Movement 1995–2024 (Lü Pin)
• Revisiting Self-Determination and Equality in the Chinese Socialist Feminist Pursuit (Lanyan Chen)
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
• CEDAW Periodic Report — China 1997
• CEDAW Periodic Report — China 2023
• The Amended Version of the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests
• Index

Readership: For academics who focus on China, Women's studies, Gender studies and Human Rights studies; graduate students, China analysts, people in organisations such as the United Nations (UN Women etc.), Human Rights Watch; diplomats; and journalists who focus on China. The book should also be suitable as a textbook for specialized courses on Chinese society and Chinese law.