Across China, women's educational attainment has soared and female undergraduates now sharply outnumber males. But women still face significant barriers getting into training and academic programs as they seek to pierce the country's traditionally male-dominated professions
Students on the campus of Chongqing Normal University in Chongqing, China on May 13, 2019. Despite outnumbering men in undergraduate studies, women often do not have the same job opportunities after college.
Image: Giulia Marchi/The New York Times
When Vincy Li applied to a prestigious police academy graduate program in China, she knew her odds of success were low. After all, the school set quotas, typically capping the number of female students at no more than one-quarter of the student body.
But her chances were even lower. When the school released admissions results earlier this year, just 5 of 140 students who had tested into the program — less than 4% — were female, even though more than 1,000 women had applied. And the lowest-scoring woman to get in did 40 points better than the lowest-scoring male applicant who was admitted, according to the school’s admission data.
For Li, the message was clear: Women were not welcome.
“Female students were totally shocked,” said Li, who had spent more than a year preparing for the exam. “I don’t understand why they don’t even offer those academic opportunities to us.”
Across China, women’s educational attainment has soared; female undergraduates now sharply outnumber males. But women still face significant barriers getting into training and academic programs — with outright quotas on their numbers in some fields — as they seek to pierce the country’s traditionally male-dominated professions.
©2019 New York Times News Service