A Summary of Issues in Women's Employment

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 1980s, for various historical reasons, employment problems in China have become increasingly acute. These include the first group of post-1949 baby boomers reaching working age and requiring employment; the return to the cities of seventeen million educated young people who had been sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, and who now required employment; and the fact that because Cultural Revolution policies did not permit the recruitment of workers from cities, approximately thirteen million members of the rural labor force entered urban areas to take up employment during the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, thereby occupying employment positions in the cities and towns. The whole centralized job placement system further compounded employment problems. The issue of women's employment was first raised and brought to the attention of society in the form of the question of employing young women who found themselves in the difficult situation of facing a historically created peak in the number of people waiting for work (which reached its maximum in 1979). Those affected were mostly young people. Since the mid-1980s, following the development of the socialist commodity economy and progress in the reform of the economic system—particularly as the competitive mechanism has been introduced into the domain of employment—women's employment has become one of society's most prominent problems. It affects not only young women, but also middle-aged and elderly women, and affects not only women waiting for work but also those who are employed. This causes social repercussions and evokes general community concern. The situation demands careful reflection on issues, including the profound changes that have taken place in Chinese society since the beginning of "reform and opening up"; the numerous women's problems implicit within the old system; the history of the Chinese women's movement and the development of the contemporary Chinese women's movement; as well as theoretical answers to these issues. Women's employment has become a hot issue in theoretical research on women in recent years.