Economic Reform and the Employment of Chinese Women

In its transformation to a more market-oriented economy, China has avoided the massive unemployment problems that have plagued Poland and Germany. Rapid growth has supported new opportunities in both the city and countryside. Surplus labor continues to be an obstacle to the competitiveness of state firms, however, and the Chinese leadership has voiced its intention to cut at least 2 percent of the work force in the near future ["Thinner Workforce . . ." 1992, 12]. The hypothesis of this paper is that while the reforms in China create many gains in income and opportunity for both men and women, the costs (especially in terms of employment opportunity) fall disproportionately on women. The paper uses Sen's [1990a] concepts of capabilities, entitlements, and social technology, discussed in the next section, to assess the changing employment conditions for Chinese women. Changes in capabilities are examined through changes in income, the source of income, and intrahousehold bargaining power. Because China is still a dual society, women face different employment environments in the countryside and the city. Unfortunately, the data currently available on Chinese women are piecemeal and at times misleading. Because of the lack of data, sources such as FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service) and personal interviews supplement the official statistics