The unemployment rate:

The 2010 census put the percentage of working-age women in the work force at 74. The figure is as high as the developed countries like the US, Australia, Sweden, etc. However, unlike the above countries, nearly 50% of this population is still rural (Fincher, 2013).

In urban area, the women unemployment rate for the working age population had climbed up comparatively higher than the male unemployment rate since the State-owned Enterprise reforms of the late 1990s. Recently, Fincher (2013) finds that China’s urban employment rate for working-age women dropped to a new low of 60.8% in 2010, comparing with 77.4% 20 years earlier. The 2010 rate was 20.3% lower than that of men.

There are 3 main reasons to lead to the trend:

China is undergoing a change into the market economy, this bring into a massive layoff since poor performance resulting in those collective enterprises, where had employed a large number of urban women in the era of the planned economy;

Under the rule of retirement, the retirement age for women is five years earlier than that for men. They have to leave their job earlier than men;

Above all, as an important boost to the economy, rural people are strongly encouraged to move to the cities under the top policy priority of China’s new leaders. Rural female are highly proportionate in secondary jobs in most enterprises. When the enterprises began to lay off the workers, they were first to be targeted.

Corresponding disparity in employment mode

AcrossChina, rural men are migrating from farms to cities for searching better living. As a result, women are increasingly on the front lines of the fight to sustain family farms, which is unpaid and unable to secure them from poverty and hunger (Schutter, 2013).

At the moment, there are 47 million “remain women”, who stayed in the rural areas while their family members went to the cities for work in China according to a study conducted by the China Agriculture University. The pressures of household life heavily placed on the shoulders of the women living in rural villages as their husbands are away from home for long periods of time for urban job while they have to stay at home to look after children and cultivate fields (Kwok, 2008).

But recently, as most of the cities in China experience fast development in profitable tertiary industries like finance, commerce, catering and hotel, the salary in these places surge greatly. Businessmen treat back to the rural areas to set up production lines and factories. For example, the labor-intensive industries, such as the garment industry, electronics manufacturing, and food and beverage processing industry, etc. They brought noticeable employment effects among rural female.

“Across the country, manufacturers have frequently preferred female employees, regarding them as more careful and less troublesome.”

This decreases the rural female unemployment rate as well as the women participation in farm work significantly. Below are the 2 cases from Asian Development Bank (2013) showing how rural women are benefited from the trend:

Case I

Ms. Cao Xinmei who formerly worked in the southern coast city of Fujian Province, where distances from her hometown around 120 kilometers, is now work in her home to wnat the Hangkai Wood Products to assemble little pet house. This job reunite her family and provide the Cao’s a more secure finance, earning a monthly income of RMB2,000-RMB3,000.She can takes better care of her family since she no longer need to stay away from it.

Case II

Nearby Lianxiangyuan Food Company in the Liancheng County presents a similar story. It was a small neighborhood workshop called Minlian Sweet Potato Factory before 2007. With a RMB 2.5 million loan and RMB 5 million raised privately, the workshop invested in 3,500 mu (233.33 hectares) of cropland, and a production line that can process 2,000 tons of dried potatoes every year.

JiaCui'e, who dries candy made of sweet potatoes there, has been worked there for more than a year. She has monthly income about RMB 2,000, which helps support her two children, who are attending high school.

“I like the job because it provides a stable income and the factory is not far from my home.”

The snack product is already generating around RMB150 million annually for the County, since Lianxiangyuan formed the Fujian LianchengHongxin Sweet Potato Corporation with 23 other county-level food companies and food-processing technology institutions in 2009.