Highly educated females not abandoning home for work

Guangzhou (CNS) – About 56.5 percent of females recently interviewed about the traditional view that "men manage external affairs while women manage internal," agreed with that pre-feminist-movement division, according to a survey published on March 1 regarding women's social status in Guangdong Province.

The local Women's Federation and Bureau of Statistics are behind the research. The report states 32.9 percent of females thirty years old or younger here have one college degree or more; that's a 9.3 percent increase in the last decade and the first time women have topped males in that demographic.

Despite this growth in the educated female population, a huge gap still exists between rural and urban groups, said Zhou Liqiong, a local officer from the Women's Federation. Fewer than ten percent of rural females aged 18-24 have received a secondary education, 21.1 percent lower than that category in urban areas.

The survey results also show that the number of females in top or mid-management positions also falls 10 percent lower than males. Looking at management positions at all levels, women only occupy 12.4 percent, while the rest are taken by men.

Post-modernity in all of China, not just Guangdong Province, seems characterized by females clinging to traditional values, said university professor Wang Hongwei. He has studied women's experiences in the workplace and finds they often receive unfair treatment on the job, one trigger that prompts a retreat to home-centered roles.