Gone are the days when minimally skilled female workers toiled in a factory, day-in day-out, only to receive a meagre salary and face bleak prospects.
With wider educational opportunities since the 1970s, more women in Hong Kong have joined the workforce, and are now contending for top jobs and assuming leadership roles, locally and internationally.
There was joy in the city when Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun took the helm of the World Health Organisation, and delight as Laura Cha Shih May-lung became the first person outside the mainland to join the central government at vice-ministerial rank. Hongkongers also take pride in Anson Chan Fang On-sang, the city's first Chinese chief secretary, and in Margaret Leung Ko May-yee, who now calls the shots at Hang Seng Bank.
The significance of women receiving a decent education and entering the workforce lies beyond the support they can thereafter provide to the household or their contribution to the economy.
For the individual, this signals an unprecedented opportunity to discover and develop their talent, and decide what they want to do and how they will go about doing it. It is a triumph for individual freedom.
The introduction of the nine-year free education policy in 1978 was a turning point in improving the socio-economic status of women, says Susanne Choi Yuk-ping, associate professor at the department of sociology and director of the Gender Research Centre at Chinese University.
