Income gap between the sexes widening (2)

The report, based on a poll of 2,240 residents aged 16 to 60 in eight cities, found that 8 percent of female respondents said they lost their jobs because of their gender, compared to only 3.6 percent of men.

Zhang Junfeng, deputy director of the institute and chief editor of the report, told China Daily on the sidelines of the symposium that workplace inequality remains a "thorny problem" and this can partly be attributed to the public's low awareness of gender inequality.

Other reasons include poor enforcement of laws and regulations to protect women's employment rights and difficulty in collecting evidence of gender discrimination, Zhang said.

He added that gender discrimination is a global problem.

Ding Manshan, who works in a foreign law firm's Shanghai office, said a local law firm rejected her application and offered the job to a male candidate last year.

"The interviewer, who was in his 30s, told me bluntly that they only want men because they believe that women are physically weaker," the 24-year-old said.

Julia Broussard, country program manager of UN Women's China Office, urged companies to become agents of social change in China by promoting gender equality internally and in the communities they serve.

"Women have not received their fair share and this has hurt business and society, not to mention women themselves," Broussard said in her opening speech at the symposium.

But some companies have been promoting gender equality.

Ma Xinying, director of the sustainable development management office at China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co, says her company has recruited more female graduates from maritime universities and set up working committees for female employees across the group's 1,000 subsidiaries worldwide.

The shipping giant has more than 70,000 staff members but they are mostly men. "But we have prioritized employing women in positions on land, and now 40 percent of our land staff are women," Ma said at the symposium.

Zhao Ying, vice-president and chief editor of Netease.com Inc, which runs a major Web portal, said women accounted for half of the company's management posts, and in some departments all leaders are women.

Contact the writer at [email protected]

Yang Yao contributed to this story.

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