• Just over a quarter of the approximately 2,300 delegates in this year’s Chinese Communist Party Congress are women.
• The Central Committee, the party’s principal leadership body, is predominately made up of men.
• Only 11 members of the 205-strong Central Committee are female, or around 5% of the total.

As has been the case for years in the majority of China’s leadership, the newly appointed Central Committee, the party’s principal leadership body with 205 members, is predominately made up of men.

According to the complete list released earlier today, only 11 members, or around 5% of the total, are female.

Just over a quarter of the approximately 2,300 delegates in this year’s Party Congress—who vary from provincial officials to representatives from the bottom up like farmers—are women, according to data made public before the Congress.

Then there is the strong Standing Committee, China’s highest-ranking decision-making body, which is normally made up of five to nine men, and the elite Politburo, which currently has only one female member.

Since the party’s ascent to power in 1949, the People’s Republic of China has never had a female leader or member of the Standing Committee.

Despite the fact that China’s constitution guarantees gender equality, commentators claim that discrimination is still pervasive due to cultural barriers and discriminatory laws like the one requiring female public employees to retire ten years earlier than male employees.

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