A report by international NGO Human Rights Watch, published at the start of this month, has revealed that a resurgence in gender-based discrimination in the workplace, particularly when it comes to pregnancy, has coincided with the relaxation of China’s one-child policy – after more than 30 years – in December 2015, to allow couples to have two children. The finding came as the Chinese government announced that it will allow couples to have three children, in order to halt the dramatic decline of its birth rate. In its report, Human Rights Watch above all denounces the gap between the government's stated aims regarding the equal treatment of women at work and the actual effectiveness of measures to protect their rights. It also points to an intrinsic contradiction between the country’s pro-birth aims and its stated aim of fostering the emancipation of individuals, particularly women in this case.
In China, gender discrimination in the workplace is by no means a new phenomenon but there is no doubt that it has worsened. Back in 2018 another report from Human Right Watch drew public attention to discrimination as regards hiring practices; the NGO’s report, based on a study of some 36,000 job advertisements published between 2013 and 2018, highlighted the prevalence of male-only advertisements in both the private and public sectors. For example, in 2018 alone, 19% of all job advertisements in China’s civil service listings specified that they were either “only for men”, “men preferred” or “only suitable for men”.
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