The changing face of women managers in China

In line with the development of gender equality in many parts of the world, an increasing level of gender equality is being achieved in China. There has been a rising proportion of women participating in education and in professional and managerial jobs at all levels in the last two decades. Despite this progress, discrimination in employment and barriers to the managerial career ladder still widely exist. This is particularly the case in government and civil service organisations where the macro-political processes continue to exert salient and often decisive influences (Zhao and Zhou, 2004) and performance may be more difficult to measure.