Women enjoy longer, better life in Tianjin ( 2003-12-04 10:33) (Xinhua)
The life expectancy of women in Tianjin, a coastal city 120 kilometers east
of the nation's capital Beijing, has risen to 77.63 years.
A recent grading by the Women and Children Work Committee of the Tianjin
Municipal Government shows the life expectancy of women in Tianjin is nearing
that of some developed countries including Britain and the United States.
Analysts here have attributed the longer life expectancy to the city's rapid
economic, cultural and human development, and in particular, its growing respect
for women, who account for 49.5 percent of its 10 million-strong population.
While about 40 percent of the women in Tianjin are working, the income ratio
between men and women is around 10"The grading has also found that 90 percent of
women in Tianjin are literate, and 100 percent of its school age girls attended
primary and junior high schools.
Meanwhile, women in Tianjin were playing an active role in the political
arena, said Hou Suning, an official with the municipal government in charge of
women and children's work.
Women make up 20.1 percent of lawmakers in Tianjin Municipal People's
Congress, and 25.2 percent of advisers at the Municipal Committee of the Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference.
"In the United States, women make up 13 and 14 percent respectively of
memberships in the Senate and House of Representatives," Hou said.
The Tianjin municipal government used United Nations standards to make the
calculation, and rated the life of its women citizens as "medium development",
according to Hou.
China's industrial and business hub Shanghai has also ranked itself recently
as "medium development" in terms of women's development, citing their life
expectancy of 81.65 years, literacy rate of 90 percent, and employment rate of
42 percent.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has been publishing an annual
human development index (HDI) since 1990, to rank countries and regions by a
composite measure of life expectancy, education and income per person.
According to the UNDP Human Development Report 2003, China's HDI values 0.721
(on a scale from 0 to 1), classified as medium human development and ranking
104th out of 175 countries and regions.
