PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality
to retire early in order to take care of their elderly parents and/or in-laws (Cooke 2005, 156). Despite the underlying cultural understanding that women are primarily responsible for housework and childcare, organizational performance measurement methods unfairly judge female employees without taking female employees’ “doublelife” into consideration. “Double-life” pressures are particularly difficult for women in industries requiring a large amount of overtime such as the IT sector (Aaltion and Huang 2007, 237) while expensive employment benefits for working mothers often cause employers to terminate female employment earlier and make them less likely to hire, “recruit, train, and promote female workers” (Cooke 2003, 344). Absenteeism data is also frequently used to “assess the commitment of...women [who are] applying for promotion” (Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 287) even if they inaccurately measure women’s participation against men’s. Discrimination against women is also reflected in the disproportionate gender gap among leadership positions in China’s business sector. As Cooke (2005) cites, leadership opportunities for women “may be undermined by the deeply embedded Chinese social convention in which women are widely expected to play a supporting role to men” (149). For example, although there is a disproportionate amount of women employed in supporting, low level, (Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 288; Cooke 2003, 340), or laborintensive positions (Burda 2007, 262) while there is a severe lack of female leadership in Chinese businesses: in 1993 nearly 20 percent of men surveyed were managers, but only 7 percent of women were (Zhou and Moen 2001, 346). Two years later, the gap had widened: in 1995, 19 per cent of Chinese men surveyed were in managerial positions while only 2 percent of women were in similar positions (cited in Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 285).
Gendered Influences
Discriminatory cultural views such as gender stereotyping is common among Chinese employees and often causes employees to downplay or dismiss female workers’ accomplishments. Male co-workers, for instance, tend to view men as more capable than women (as cited in Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 288; Cooke 2003, 338). Even some high-ranking female managers do not view themselves as successful as their male counterparts (Xian and Woodhams 2008, 415). These successful female managers also tended to play down their successes or to attribute them to luck or circumstances (415-416). These statements seem to be linked to socialized expectations of female gendered behavior, specifically, the expectation that women should be modest. Chinese businesswomen could potentially offset negative gender stereotyping by exhibiting positive “feminine” traits. For instance, Adler’s (1997) exploration of female leaders as being “driven” by vision, not ambition (189), may also be linked to this same socialized modest mindset. Successful Chinese businesswomen could be exploiting this gendered expectation by representing themselves to be working for the greater good, not for themselves as individuals. The vision-driven goals of the women that Adler (1997) examined (189) also seemed similar to the “transformational” leadership style that seeks to motivate subordinates by appealing to “higher ideals and moral values” (Chen et al 2010, 249). A
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