Essay Example on From Tradition to Modernity: Footbinding in China (1839-1911)

Rejali, Saman. "From Tradition to Modernity: Footbinding and Its End (1839-1911) - the History of the Anti-Footbinding Movement and the Histories of Bound-Feet Women in China." Prandium: The Journal of Historical Studies at U of T Mississauga 3, no. 1 (September 22, 2014). https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/prandium/article/view/21844.

Rejali offers a concise description of women that they were uneducated and discouraged from engaging in paid economies. Moreover, they are forbidden from inheriting properties. Despite women having increase access to education, they are discriminated against in employment opportunities. Also, women practice footbinding, which is a cultural phenomenon in which ladies bandage their feet with the intention of pleasing men. Rejali explains that cultural practice is a show of wealth and status of the family.

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Matthews, Rebecca, and Victor Nee. "Gender Inequality and Economic Growth in Rural China." Social Science Research 29, no. 4 (December 1, 2000): 606-32. https://doi.org/10.1006/ssre.2000.0684.

Matthews & Victor (2018) postulates that the status of women is feared to get worst despite the increase in non-agricultural employment opportunities. This is because employers prefer males to females. Women are responsible for caring for children. Moreover, they are expensive to be maintained by employers, since they require maternity leaves and less working hours when they give birth or during their pregnancy. Other features preferred by employers such as educational attainment and experience, which favor men to wage employment opportunities better.

Goodman, Bryna, and Wendy Larson. Gender in Motion: Divisions of Labor and Cultural Change in Late Imperial and Modern China. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005.

Goodman and Larson, Gender in Motion. Stressed that the political and social order relies on the thorough division of labor and space. They emphasize the separation of sexes. The woman was supposed to dwell inside the house while the man should live outside the residence. Gender segregation should be strictly upheld. If a woman is assigned jobs that ought to be in contact with outside, it will bring shame to the imperial court.

Essay Outline

China has experienced an increase in economic growth, which is vital in reducing the level of poverty. There is a shift from agricultural farming to formal employment. Although it has increased the level of income in households, women are disadvantageous since most cannot access formal employment due to cultural values. Employees prefer men because of their strength, high educational attainment, and less financial expenditure. Lastly, societal roles for women are to care for children and husbands.

The research focuses on gender inequality in china. Specifically, it outlines the challenges women go through in all sectors of the economy. Some of these sectors are off-farm employment and rural household mobility, gender queues and female entry into off-farm employment, the security of land rights, and public transfers.

• The economic history of china
• this section discusses economic growth in China from 1978 to the early 20th century.
• The section also describes the development of formal employment and how femalelag behind in development and individual growth
• The societal expectation of men and women
• Gender inequality
• The section describes factors that contribute to variation in men and women
• Societal roles of women that promote gender inequality
• Gender inequality in off-farm employment and rural household mobility
• Explains the reasons why employers prefer men than women
• Discuss the cultural roles of women
• Introduction of market-driven economies
• Gender inequality in entry into off-farm employment
• Massive layoffs of workers in china state-owned enterprise
• Rehiring of women at minimal rates than men after layoffs
• Gender discrimination in terms of body appearance and age
• Gender discrimination
• Law discrimination
• Wage discrimination
• Occupational segregation
• Motherhood penalty
• Gender inequality in security land rights
• Describes the policy in the distribution of land
• Gender inequality in public transfers
• A.Public educational transfers
• B.Public healthcare transfers
• C.Public pension transfers

Gender inequality in China in the early 20th century

The persistent economic growth in china serves as a tool for rescuing millions of households from wallowing in poverty. If people residing in rural areas leave subsistent farming and chances of other forms of employment increases, the households generate a lot of income. This strategy has enhanced the Chinese in the transformation from state socialism. However, men have benefited significantly from other forms of employment as compared to women. This situation makes women lag in development and personal growth.

Despite the ever increase in the non-agriculture form of employment, the state of women is feared to worsen even though households receive a substantial amount of income. The situation is perpetuated by employers who have a preference for men than women during recruitment. Women are believed to perform societal roles like caring for children. The increasing number of men leaving for formal employment has left women to be responsible for agricultural farming.

During the year 1978, China witnessed the change from agricultural farming to industrial set up. The changes lead to the development of many industries making Chinese citizens rely more on the market to generate income. The industries built were privately, and government-owned. Several industries emerged in rural areas promoting market-driven economies. The gender disparity arises since women were losing in marketization. The labor from women was not valued in running the private family enterprise. Male gender was given a priority in starting and running a business as opposed to the female gender.

Another factor that has affected women in employment is the application of certain features by employers when recruiting workers. For instance, workers prefer to use certain traits such as experience and educational attainment. When these characteristics are used, they mostly favor men than women and give men better chances for wage employment as opposed to women. Organizations prefer features that are more inclined to men than women since they consider more productive.

Institutions prefer workers who spend less, financially on them. Women are expensive since, legally, they will require to be granted maternity leaves when they give birth. Furthermore, they will demand to be offered minimal working hours, which makes them highly expensive than men. Some cultures hinder women from doing specific tasks, this contributes to unemployment in women. Social obligations like caring for children prevent women from getting formal employment away from their residential areas.

China has invested heavily in the development of industries in the regional and local markets; moreover, they have enacted favorable policies that attract foreign investment. Foreign investment has generated job opportunities in urban centers, which promoted market-propelled economic growth. The most male population left their remote villages in search of high well-paying jobs in urban centers hence leaving rural industries to be taken by the females. Moreover, men retired at the age of 60. women were mandated to retire at the age of 50. This retirement difference further increased the level of unemployment among women in the republic of china. Chinese culture believes that men are supposed to work outside while the primary role of women is to remain within their homes and to rear children.

Chinese women shut out of the most significant accumulation of the real estate

Law discrimination

The china legal system has a lot of flaws, and it works against the women in the society. When a woman is divorced, she ends up losing the wealth she has accumulated to the husband. They are not economically empowered and secure, and these make them endure consistent marital abuse. The homes that are registered under men's names are estimated to be U.S dollar 30 trillion. Approximately 80 percent of the male population owns homes that are registered under their titles as compared to females who own 30 percent. The disparity in homeownership displays that there is a considerable gender gap in China.

Wage discrimination

In terms of educational attainment, Chinese women have exceeded men. However, the advancement in education does not seem to lower the gender gap in salary distribution. The government has offered a wage premium for women. Also, the process marketization and decentralization adopted by the government as part of reforms, have contributed a lot to wage discrimination. From 1987 to 2004, the gender earning variation rises due to a robust sticky floor effect realized among ladies with low educational attainment and low skills. After the reforms era, most employers think women are less efficient, less reliable, and most expensive than male employees due to their reproductive duties. Apart from lowering women's salary earnings, discrimination of women employers negatively influence their commitment to work, job satisfaction, and motivation.

Occupational Segregation

The most prominent contribution to the gender gap earnings in most western developed economies is occupational segregation. Investigation on transitional economies displays occupational feminization can explain a lot concerning gender gap earnings in particular contexts. Occupational feminization and occupational segregation contribute a lot to the gender gap earnings in China. The increase in marketization has made some jobs more accessible to women, which raises gender pay penalties. Women in china are squeezed out of the emerging markets segments with attractive high incomes and elevated status. Segregation and stratification, together with marketization, has worsened the gender inequality. The transition from planned to the market economy has moved gender gaps between non-state and state sector linked jobs to gendered occupational segregation.

Motherhood Penalty

The western industrialized nations consider that having young children or giving birth negatively affects mothers' labor force attachments. The research on the women's labor market in china remains inconsiderate to the ever-rising family obligations. Some jobs assigned to the employed women during the period of state-driven privatization and marketization of the social services are affected during maternity. A clique of scholars has begun to investigate the role of family status and the implication of family-related works on women labor market results. Feminist opinion is required to understand how family and state collaborate to develop motherhood penalties in the Chinese nation.

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