"The federation will enhance its co-operation with local governments to encourage more financial groups, non-governmental organizations and private investors to get involved in the re-employment programme for laid-off women workers," said Peng Peiyun, president of the federation, at the opening ceremony yesterday of a two-day national forum on the employment of women.

"For those employing a certain number of laid-off women, local authorities can help them benefit from preferential policies within the framework stipulated by the central government," added Peng.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security promised earlier this year to institute preferential policies such as complete operation tax waivers for enterprises employing a "considerable" number of laid-off workers and for enterprises established by laid-off workers.

More Chinese women work today than at the beginning of the 1980s. Working women now account for more than 45 per cent of the female population.

But women are fast becoming the group most sensitive to the "tense" employment situation in China, according to Peng.

Evidence of this is the fact that only 39 per cent of laid-off women workers have ever been re-employed, 24.9 percentage points lower than the figure for laid-off men.

"For most women, this means they cannot afford to lose their jobs," said Peng. "But most employers tend to discharge a woman rather than a man, if someone has to be discharged."

More women are refusing to live with the discrimination, and are choosing to prove themselves with hard work and wisdom.

Federation statistics indicate a more aggressive attitude from women regarding job searches. For example, 43.3 per cent of urban women who have jobs are assigned to the work by labour authorities, 15.1 percentage points lower than in 1990.

As many as 14.3 per cent of employed urban women secured their jobs through systematic job hunts, 3 percentage points higher than men.

In addition, 21.4 per cent of employed urban women are working in their own enterprises, compared with 21.7 per cent of men.

Against such a backdrop, Peng said she believes the federation's plan to spread its successful pilot small-loan programme beyond Tianjin will be successful.

Started in 1999 and involving US$900,000, the project has helped over 6,000 laid-off women workers find new jobs and pulled 2,100 such women above the poverty line, according to Wang Zhiqiu, president of the Tianjin Women's Federation.

(China Daily December 16, 2002)