Women in management in China

Despite the promotion of Chairman Mao’s famous motto: ‘women hold up half of the sky’ as an egalitarian socialist ideology since the 1950s, and despite their high level of labor market participation, there remains a low proportion of women in political leadership and managerial positions in China. More precisely, in 2013 women made up just over 23.4 percent of all representatives to the National People’s Congress of China (the highest state body and the only legislative house in the country) (NBSC, 2014). By 2007, only 17 percent of those in local government leadership positions were women (Nie, 2009). Only 1.2 percent of women worked as heads of organizations in 2013, compared with 3.1 percent of men who did so (NBSC, 2014). Only 2.6 percent of women were employers compared to 5.2 percent of men in the same category in 2013 (NBSC, 2014). This chapter analyzes the political, social, cultural and organizational barriers to women’s advancement in their managerial careers against a context of high levels of education and labor market participation of women close to that of men.