【专栏】被忽视的中国女性崛起（中英双语）

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编者按：在《环球时报英文版》12月29日刊发的第65篇“变局”专栏中，中国人民大学重阳金融研究院执行院长王文探讨了中国国家崛起的女性变量。他表示，忽视中国女性进步，正如西方忽视中国在扶贫、气候变化、基建、全球治理上的贡献那样，是观察中国“变局”的一个普遍空白。下文为专栏的中英文版。

本文英文版在 Global Times 的版面截图

2020年最后一周，我率队赴广西中越边界调研多个口岸城市。一个意外的偶遇是，多个城市接待我们的均是女副市长。这提醒我，需要写一篇专栏，超越惯常的男性中心主义视角观察中国的变化。

这几位女副市长都很令我敬佩。一位有两个孩子，小的才10个月，但不得不陪同我们调研座谈至深夜；一位从数百公里外的首府南宁借调至边疆工作多年，“偶尔回家时，孩子都不认识了”；还有一位晚餐结束需要驱车近两小时山路回到住处。

职场上的女性比男性须顾虑更多，在官场上的女性则更不容易。不过，这些年，中国党政机关中的女干部却在增多。

1970年代末，中国的女干部人数仅42万人，2017年，数量增加了近5倍，达到190万，占干部总数的26.5%。2017年，中央部委新录用公务员女性比例更是超过52%。女性参政是女性地位提升和社会文明进步的重要尺度。中国在这方面的进步，并没有落后于欧美国家很多。

在教育文化领域，越来越多中国女性在高能物理、航天工程、人工智能、化学材料等高尖端科技领域崛起。据统计，女性科技工作者已增至3600万人，占比近40%。这个比例基本与发达国家持平。

从社会与法律领域，中国女性的地位在不少地方已超过西方。在中国职场上，男女是同工同薪的，且越来越多地方设置生育奖励假、配偶护理假，假期普遍达到138天至158天。中国已有100多部单行法律法规专门保障妇女权益。2018年，全国共有妇幼保健机构3080家，是世界卫生组织列为妇幼健康绩效最高的十个国家之一。在中国家庭，女性管钱的现象已非常普遍。

更令世界想不到的是，中国劳动参与率达76%，而女性参与劳动率已达到70%，是全世界最高的。要知道法国男性劳动参与率只有62%。相比之间，新西兰女性仅有60%，美国58%，日本30%，而印度只有28%。

在多数时候，中国女性要兼顾的，要比绝大多数国家女性更多。在中国，42%的家庭，女性承担绝大部分家务。一个中国母亲，不但需要做好员工、好妻子、好女儿，还可能需要做好厨师、好保姆、好司机、好财务，甚至是好的心理咨询师……

我越来越觉得，中国发展速度超过绝大多数国家，绝大多数差额是由中国女性付出超出他国女性而挣来的。

中国男性往往被奚落。在奥运赛场，中国多数奖牌都是女运动员得的。“三大球”（足球、篮球、排球）项目，中国男运动队均是弱旅，而女运动队则都曾多次摘金夺银。社会中常用“阴盛阳衰”来形容这种现象。

当然，肯定中国女性的进步，并不是想说中国女性的发展现状已无可挑剔。在中国，大量女性问题仍然存在，比如农村仍存在重男轻女、留守妇女的现象，女性教育缺乏、家庭暴力、女性健康威胁等问题仍存在。这些恰恰是中国未来需要努力的方向。 

这篇专栏讨论被忽视的中国女性崛起，是想提醒我的英文读者一个新角度，那就是中国国家崛起的女性变量。 

西方观察中国往往批评多，肯定少；挑刺多，发现少。忽视中国女性进步，正如西方忽视中国在扶贫、气候变化、基建、全球治理上的贡献那样，是观察中国“变局”的一个普遍空白。

这令我想起谢丽尔·桑德伯格的著作《向前一步：女性、工作及领导意志》。这位全球最成功的职场女性之一激励女性，“须拥有更加开放的心态”。其实，这个建议给每一个人都适用。

Chinese women's rise Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

以下为英文版

Women’s rise epitomizes China’s development

By Wang Wen

In the last week of 2020, I led a team to the China-Vietnam border area to do field research in various port cities of South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Coincidentally, many of the deputy mayors of these cities who received us were female. This made me reflexively want to write about changes in China beyond the perspective of men. 

These female deputy mayors left me in awe. One has two children, the younger one only 10 months old, but she accompanied us until the midnight. Another has been working along the border for many years. When she occasionally goes back home, her kid sometimes doesn't recognize her. The third one had to drive back home for two hours after we finished a dinner.

Working women have more concerns than men. This is especially so for women working in officialdom. But in recent years, the number of female officials has been steadily increasing.

At the end of the 1970s, there were about 420,000 female civil servants in China. By 2017, the number was nearly five times to almost 1.9 million, taking up 26.5 percent of all Chinese civil servants nationally. That same year, 52 percent of newly employed civil servants in central departments were female. Women's participation in politics is an important measure of the social status of women and civilization. China's progress in this regard is not far behind European countries and the US.

In terms of education and culture, increasing numbers of Chinese women have played more important roles in high-tech areas, including high energy physics, aerospace engineering, artificial intelligence, and chemical materials. According to the China Women's News, in 2018 the number of female high-tech workers had reached 36 million, or 40 percent of that sector's total labor force. This ratio is almost the same as developed countries. 

In social and legal domains, the status of females in many regions of China has surpassed those in Western countries. In the workplace in China, males and females are paid the same when performing the same job in the same organization. Furthermore, Chinese employees in many regions can receive maternity and paternity leave. There are over 100 separate laws and regulations to protect women's rights and interests. In 2018, there were 3,080 maternal and child healthcare institutions nationwide, making it one of the top 10 countries with the highest levels of maternal and child health performance, according to a ranking by the World Health Organization. In China, it has become common for women to take charge of household finances.

Statistics from 2019 shows that China's labor participation rate stood at 76 percent, and its female labor participation reached 70 percent. By contrast, this was only 50 percent in France, 58 percent in the US, and 28 percent in India. Chinese women tend to have more to balance than their counterparts in many countries. In nearly half Chinese households, females do most of the housework. A Chinese mother not only has to be a good employee, wife, and daughter, but also has to be a qualified chef, baby-sitter, driver, accountant and even psychologist. 

I feel that China's development speed is moving faster than most countries because Chinese women work harder than women in other countries.

Chinese men are often taunted by the public by the rise of powerful women. For example, in the Olympic Games, most of China's medals are won by female athletes. In three traditional ball games (soccer, basketball, and volleyball), the men's teams of China are all weak. But women's sports teams have won many gold and silver medals. 

Of course, to affirm the progress of Chinese women is not to say that the status quo of Chinese women's development has been impeccable. In China, a large number of female problems still exist, such as preferences for sons, left-behind women in rural areas, the lack of female education, domestic violence, and threats to women's health. These are exactly what China needs to improve in the future.

By discussing the neglected rise of Chinese women, this column intends to remind my English readers of a new angle: females as key variables to the rise of the Chinese state.

Western observers tend to criticize China more than recognize the improvement of China. Just as the West usually ignores China's contribution to poverty alleviation, climate change, infrastructure, and global governance, they also pay no attention to the improvement of Chinese women. 

This reminds me of Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean in: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. One of the world's most successful working women has inspired women to "be more open to taking risks." In fact, this advice applies to everyone.

（The author is professor and executive dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China.）

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中国人民大学重阳金融研究院（人大重阳）成立于2013年1月19日，是重阳投资董事长裘国根先生向母校捐赠并设立教育基金运营的主要资助项目。

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