Education in China
Education in China is a state-run system of public education run by the Ministry of Education. All citizens must attend school for at least nine years, known as the nine-year compulsory education, which is funded by the government. Compulsory education includes six years of primary education, starting at age six or seven, and three years of junior secondary education (junior middle school) for ages 12 to 15. Some provinces may have five years of primary school but four years for junior middle school. After junior middle school, there are three years of senior middle school, which then completes the secondary education.
Gender inequality in China
On a global scale, gender inequality in China is relatively slight. In 2014, China ranked 40th out of 187 countries on the United Nations Development Programme's Gender Inequality Index (GII). Among the GII components, China's maternal mortality ratio was 32 out of 100,000 live births. In education 58.7 percent of women age 25 and older had completed secondary education, while the counterpart statistic for men was 71.9 percent. Women's labour force participation rate was 63.9 percent (compared to 78.3 percent for men), and women held 23.6 percent of seats in the National People's Congress.
Before the 1949 Maoist revolution, women were generally restricted to the traditional gender roles of wives, concubines, or prostitutes. Female oppression stemmed partly from Confucian beliefs about gender roles in society (such as filial piety), ideas which remain influential. Wives were expected to be subservient to their husbands, kowtowing to their husbands. Concubines had less choice than married women, and were kept as mistresses by men for sexual services or to produce children. Prostitution frequently resulted from women being sold into brothels by their parents. Legal during the Qing Dynasty, there were few laws regulating prostitution; as a result, prostitutes were similar to slaves and lacked legal rights.