Gender equality means providing equal opportunity to access resources and the variety of opportunities in the environment, either its organizational or other institutional environment, without focusing on a specified gender like men, women and LGBTs. Every society has its own laws, rules, and regulations in order to sustain a balanced atmosphere. It’s in the laws of every state or country that education is the basic right of every individual. The equality laws of a state always promote gender equality so that all genders benefit from the resources being provided to them. The gender equality laws try to overcome issues like gender discrimination, inequity, and biases and an equal distribution of roles like community, reproductive and productive ones.
The gender equality laws in the economic sector provide platforms to women, especially in developing countries, to participate in economic activities, such as starting their own businesses and participating in the marking of economic policies. Such laws motivate women to break the stereotypes in a particular society by giving and providing opportunities and platforms. When all genders participate equally in a particular society, developmental processes take place. This will overcome the poverty issue, and every individual will be able to earn and produce the required goods. For example, equal participation in farming would result in better output. Both genders participate in the productive roles given to them to produce more crops.
According to Andors (1983), the concept of liberation has been extended by the intellectuals, who, according to Wolf (1985), postponed the revolution to a period of reform. It is argued that the discrimination against women has taken birth because of these economic reforms; this is not only one, but it also failed in the upbringing of women to the equal levels of men. Liu (1995), mentions that the results can be noticed in the labor force which is stratified by the gender where women are forced to engage themselves in low paid occupations. Bian, in 1987, says that it has created a double burden of gender roles like family responsibilities and in the work field. In addition, Brave et al. (1992) mention that women lack employment opportunities and have low educational backgrounds. Lastly Dalsimer & Ninsof (1984), Summer field (1994) write that during the economic reforms the layoff got higher and likewise the discrimination against hiring of women in the increased discrimination against women in hiring increased.
The changes in labour policy since the reform have had a profound but not always positive impact on women [4]. Economic restriction has a very real and gendered bearing on women, as reflected by their dilemmas and opportunities in unemployment,re-employment and self-employment. In other words, for many women, whether they are able to maintain a job, how they enter and exit from the job market, and what kind of jobs are available to them have been largely determined by the reshuffling of the labour force as a result of economic restrictions. Self-employment is an outlet for women to avoid the gendered job market since one does not have to go through possibly discriminatory hiring processes and can, to some extent, choose the type of business; allowing women to transcend their traditional family roles, self-employment has contributed to the rise of a considerable number of prosperous individual business women in China.
However, this has proven to be no easy undertaking for women because, under China’s current conditions, traditional gender roles in the family are yet to be reconstructed; individual businesswomen are often caught in a dilemma; on the one hand, they have to be strong-willed, smart and very hard working to compete in a still largely male-dominated business world; on the other hand, they are often expected to play the traditional motherly and wifely roles in the family, though many of them cry out of understanding from society and their families [5].
