The most comprehensive compilation of information on the status of
women in the world.

Latest items for China

Dec. 11, 2024, 11:30 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: TRAFF-PRACTICE-2

"This 30-second video, shot in an undisclosed location in Laos, went viral late last month after it was posted to Facebook, along with dialogue warning of ethnic Hmong middlemen working as interpreters for Chinese nationals seeking Hmong women and girls as wives. While the offer of marriage can be a financial leg up for largely poor Hmong villagers in rural Laos, many women who accept end up victims of human trafficking, according to a Lao official, who is calling on authorities to take action against the middlemen. Some of the women end up as forced laborers and sometimes face physical punishment, the official said. 'In the video, the middleman goes...more
Dec. 11, 2024, 11:30 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: TRAFF-DATA-1

"It was unclear how many Hmong women have moved to China to marry Chinese men in recent years. But Lao government officials and one person who works for an NGO said the practice has become commonplace in the country’s north, particularly in Luang Prabang and Oudomxay provinces. 'I just saw this happen earlier this year,' a resident of Xayabury province’s Hongsa district told RFA. 'A middleman who works for Chinese men came here to negotiate with parents of Hmong women. When the parents said yes, he did all the paperwork according to regulations and laws on marriage'" (para 16-17).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: WAM-PRACTICE-1

"Censorship of feminist topics online has intensified, as has misogynistic state propaganda" (para 14).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: SEGI-PRACTICE-3

"Mr. Xi’s government has waged a broad crackdown on civil society organizations, making overt feminism dangerous. Huang Xueqin, a leading feminist activist and journalist who helped start China’s #MeToo movement by creating a social media platform for reporting sexual harassment in 2018, was put on trial in September on vague charges of subversion, after two years in detention. No verdict has been announced" (para 13).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: SEGI-PRACTICE-1

"Mr. Xi’s government has waged a broad crackdown on civil society organizations, making overt feminism dangerous. Huang Xueqin, a leading feminist activist and journalist who helped start China’s #MeToo movement by creating a social media platform for reporting sexual harassment in 2018, was put on trial in September on vague charges of subversion, after two years in detention. No verdict has been announced" (para 13). "The Communist Party has dug in, identifying Western feminism as an unpatriotic threat to its population-planning objectives and an example of hostile foreign ideological infiltration. Censorship of feminist topics online has intensified, as has misogynistic state propaganda. But as record-high numbers of Chinese women attend...more
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: MARR-PRACTICE-2

"The pressure to marry began when Amiee was in her early 20s. By 25, her Chinese parents were accusing her of causing them a public loss of face because she still had no plans to wed. Her father warned her that women are worth less to a man as they near the age of 30, when — according to Chinese government propaganda — their peak childbearing time has passed. When Amiee was 29, her mother threatened to jump off a building if she didn’t find a husband. At family gatherings like Chinese New Year, relatives badgered her to help her 'entire clan find peace,' she told me, and at work...more
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: MARR-DATA-1

"Marriage registrations have fallen for nine consecutive years leading up to 2022, when they sank to the lowest level since the government began releasing figures in 1986" (para 9).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: ISSA-DATA-2

"As of 2020, China still had about 17.5 million more men than women between the ages of 20 and 40, which government media has warned could pose a threat to social stability" (para 8).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: ISSA-DATA-1

"In the late 1970s, the government imposed its one-child policy to rein in population growth. But this led to plummeting birthrates, an aging population and a gender imbalance as millions of female fetuses were aborted because of a traditional preference for male heirs" (para 8).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: IIP-PRACTICE-2

"Young, educated women were conspicuously on the front lines of protests in several cities in late 2022 against the government’s oppressive pandemic-control policies" (para 17).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: GP-DATA-1

"Last year, for the first time since 1997, not a single woman was among the 24 members appointed to the party’s new Politburo" (para 11).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: GIC-LAW-1

"In the late 1970s, the government imposed its one-child policy to rein in population growth. But this led to plummeting birthrates, an aging population and a gender imbalance as millions of female fetuses were aborted because of a traditional preference for male heirs. (As of 2020, China still had about 17.5 million more men than women between the ages of 20 and 40, which government media has warned could pose a threat to social stability.) Worried, the government abandoned the one-child policy beginning in 2016, allowing all married couples to have two children and raising that to three in 2021" (para 8).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: DACH-PRACTICE-2

"It is already becoming more difficult to get vasectomies" (para 16).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: BR-PRACTICE-2

"Now many young Chinese women are doing exactly that, delaying or shunning marriage and childbirth altogether, mirroring the journey of women in other, wealthier patriarchal East Asian societies such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan" (para 6).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: BR-DATA-1

"Births have also continued to fall, with only 9.56 million babies being born last year, the fewest since records began with the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The nation’s population shrank in 2022 for the first time in six decades, allowing India to overtake China as the world’s most populous country" (para 9).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: ATDW-LAW-1

"Many face domestic violence and an uphill battle in pursuing a divorce in court. In 2021 the government made it even harder for women to seek divorce, imposing a mandatory cooling-off period for feuding couples" (para 12).
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: AOM-PRACTICE-1

"The pressure to marry began when Amiee was in her early 20s. By 25, her Chinese parents were accusing her of causing them a public loss of face because she still had no plans to wed. Her father warned her that women are worth less to a man as they near the age of 30, when — according to Chinese government propaganda — their peak childbearing time has passed. When Amiee was 29, her mother threatened to jump off a building if she didn’t find a husband" (para 1-2). "I hear similar stories from single women across China, where sexist state propaganda labels single professional women older than 27 as...more
Dec. 10, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: AFE-DATA-1

"[R]ecord-high numbers of Chinese women attend college" (para 15).
Nov. 9, 2024, 9:43 a.m.
Countries: China
Variables: ERBG-PRACTICE-1

“Women performing physical work will be able to retire at the age of 55, instead of the current 50. For women in office positions, the retirement age will increase from 55 to 58. For men, the threshold will be raised from 60 to 63. The changes will be implemented gradually over the next 15 years, and early retirement will not be allowed. At the same time, employees will have the option to extend their professional activity by up to three years beyond the statutory retirement age” (para 2-3).
Nov. 9, 2024, 9:43 a.m.
Countries: China
Variables: DACH-DATA-1

“[A]verage life expectancy rose to 78.2 years” (para 6).
Nov. 5, 2024, 1:18 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: GIC-LAW-1

"Measures [to encourage marriage and childbirth] have included relaxing the sweeping policy that for decades controlled the number of children married couples could have, as well as attempting to find ways to incentivize childbirth and marriage" (para 16).
Nov. 5, 2024, 1:18 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: AOM-DATA-1

"The average marriage age for first marriages was 28.67 years old in 2020, up from 24.89 years old a decade prior, according to census data" (para 14).
Nov. 5, 2024, 1:18 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: AOM-PRACTICE-1

"Changing gender norms and expanding career opportunities for women, as in other places in the world, are also widely seen as driving the marriage age higher and impacting attitudes about the institution" (para 11). Customarily, girls are marrying at higher ages (CEC - CODER COMMENT). "The government-affiliated China Family Planning Association extended a 2022 pilot program advocating 'a new concept of marriage and childbearing.' The program – which was rolled out to 20 cities or municipal-level districts last year, with another 20 localities added this year – focuses on motivating young people to get married at a “proper age” and encouraging couples to share child-rearing responsibilities, officials have said" (para...more
Nov. 5, 2024, 1:18 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: ATDW-DATA-1

"The Ministry of Civil Affairs’ recent data release also showed a slight fall in divorce registrations, with 2.1 million couples divorced in 2022, down from 2.13 million couples the previous year" (para 20).
Nov. 5, 2024, 1:18 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: ATDW-LAW-1

"China has mandated a 30-day “cooling-off” period for people filing for divorce since 2021, despite criticism that it could make it harder for women to leave broken or even abusive marriages" (para 21).
Nov. 5, 2024, 1:18 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: ATFPA-PRACTICE-2

"Changing gender norms and expanding career opportunities for women, as in other places in the world, are also widely seen as driving the marriage age higher and impacting attitudes about the institution.That attitude shift is especially apparent among younger women, some of whom are growing disillusioned with marriage for its role in entrenching gender inequality, experts say" (para 11,12). This implies in marriage, paternal authority is privilegd over maternal authority (CEC - CODER COMMENT). "The government-affiliated China Family Planning Association extended a 2022 pilot program advocating 'a new concept of marriage and childbearing.' The program – which was rolled out to 20 cities or municipal-level districts last year, with another...more
Nov. 5, 2024, 1:18 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: BR-DATA-1

"China’s population shrank in 2022 for the first time in more than 60 years, with just 6.77 births per 1,000 people – the lowest level since the founding of Communist China in 1949" (para 6).
Nov. 5, 2024, 1:18 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: MARR-PRACTICE-2

"China last year recorded its lowest number of marriages since public records became available, furthering a nearly decade-long decline in matrimony that has coincided with falling birth rates and triggered government concern of a demographic crisis" (para 1). "6.83 million couples married in 2022, according to data released by China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs on Friday. That’s down around 10.5% from the 7.63 million marriage registrations in 2021 and marks a record low since 1986" (para 2). "[There] has been a steady decline in people choosing to enter into marriages since a 2013 peak, when more than 13 million couples tied the knot – nearly double the 2022 nuptials" (para...more
Nov. 5, 2024, 1:18 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: BR-PRACTICE-1

"The party’s stringent response to Covid-19 also crystallized simmering political frustrations among some young people, with the catchphrase, “We are the last generation” – a refusal to bear children into the rigidly controlled Chinese state – becoming a rallying cry during Shanghai’s punishing two-month lockdown last spring" (para 10).
Nov. 5, 2024, 1:18 p.m.
Countries: China
Variables: MARR-PRACTICE-5, MARR-LAW-4

"When it comes to marriage, these [marriage incentives] have ranged from mass blind dating events held by the Communist Youth League – the party’s youth branch – to officials seeking to reduce the value of “bride price,” the amount paid to a prospective partner’s family that the government has suggested could be a barrier to marriage in rural China, where it’s more common" (para 17).