Women's Political Participation in China

In the last two decades, one of the most remarkable phenomena worldwide is the rise of women in politics. However, the development of women's political participation in China lags behind women's political participation in Western countries. In the Chinese political field, public positions tend to be gendered, and the authority of female officials is marginalized. In this paper, I examine the factors that have shaped the political development of Chinese women's movement towards equality with men, and I explain why the political participation of Chinese women continues to lag behind men's. After assessing the lack of women's political participation, I consider ways to improve Chinese women's political participation, including developing women's access to jobs in tertiary industries and decreasing the time women spend on unpaid domestic work; strengthening the institutional guarantee of Chinese women's political participation; strengthening the cooperation between the government and NGO; strengthening teacher training, downplaying the gender bias in textbooks, and raising women's consciousness of political participation. These findings will be useful to public policy analysts in China who are concerned about the enduring obstacles to women's political empowerment, and who are considering policy measures they might adopt to further increase women's political participation.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Guo, Xiaoheng

• China

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/39128

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/39128