China’s gender gap widening post-pandemic, with ‘she-cession’ still real threat to economy

Peking University study finds disparity between men and women more than doubled in terms of hours worked and widened by nearly 30 per cent in terms of pay in 2020

Researchers also saw the ‘magnitude of the ‘she-cession’ in China’, where the Covid-induced economic slowdown disproportionately impacted the female labour force

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The Peking University study showed that working mothers with young children were worst hit by the pandemic. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 7:00am, 11 Apr 2024Updated: 9:23pm, 12 Apr 2024

China’s workplace gender gap significantly increased during the coronavirus pandemic, and has continued to widen, Chinese researchers said in the first paper portraying the “she-cession” phenomenon.

The disparity between women and their male peers more than doubled in terms of hours worked, and widened by nearly 30 per cent in terms of pay in 2020 compared with before the coronavirus outbreak, according to a study by a group of researchers from Peking University.

“The gender gap in the labour market is still widening after the pandemic has ended, and the plight of working mothers is unlikely to be fundamentally improved in the short term,” said the paper, published in the April issue of the “China Economic Review” journal.

Compared with men, Chinese women – who are among the most active in the labour market in Asia – had an unemployment rate 5.1 percentage points higher, worked 1.4 hours less a day and were paid about 2,200 yuan (US$304) less a month in November 2020, according to the study.

Tracking over 5,800 workers across 325 cities in three rounds of surveys, the researchers said that “documenting and understanding the magnitude of the ‘she-cession’ in China is not just a reflection of the past” as economic recession, unemployment and psychological traumas linger.

The phrase “she-cession” was coined as multiple studies in developed countries in the past couple of years suggested that the Covid-induced economic recession disproportionately impacted the female labour force.

China, which was the first to be hit by the pandemic and imposed the longest and strictest health control measures, has undergone an uneven recovery since reopening at the end of 2022, and is facing bleak growth prospects partly due to structural issues, including a shrinking workforce.

Its female labour force participation rate – the proportion of those aged 15 and older that are economically active – declined from 61.4 per cent in 2019 to 60.5 last year, according to the World Bank.