The New Economic Readjustment Policies: Implications for Chinese Urban Working Women

Abstract

This paper examines critically a cluster of recent economic policy initiatives in the People's Republic of China known as the New Economic Readjustment Policies, and analyzes their probable impacts on the equality differentials between Chinese women and men as broad categories of urban workers. After reviewing the post-Mao policy context and goals of the current modernization campaigns, the paper analyzes six aspects of the New Economic Readjustment Policies as they are likely to affect urban working women: (1) sex-segmentation in the work force; (2) wage differentials; (3) moral and material incentives; (4) older women in the work force; (5) management opportunities for women; and (6) consumerism and housework. This analysis is followed by the responses of the All-China Women's Federation to these concerns, and a discussion of the current political work of the All-China Women's Federation.