More Chinese Women Join Media Industry: Report

The "Chinese Journalism Annual Observation Report 2014" was released on September 13 at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, capital city of south China's Guangdong Province, showing that increasing numbers of Chinese women are stepping into the media industry.

According to the report, about 250,000 people are licensed by the Government to work as national news reporters (in China, it is illegal for Chinese citizens to work in the news industry unless the Government has expressly permitted them to do so). However, the number of people currently engaged in news gathering exceeds one million. Of this number the male to female ratio was flat, respectively, 48.5 percent and 51.5 percent, with an average age of 32 years old, and with 76 percent of people being below the age of 35.

The report noted that compared to the national survey of journalists in 1997, the proportion of female journalists has significantly increased, probably due to the rapid increase in the number of women studying news majors in colleges in recent years, the ratio of which has shifted significantly towards favoring women in recent years.

The report also cited a survey conducted by Zhou Baohua, associate professor of Journalism School of Fudan University, which showed that female news practitioners were younger, highly educated and are most dissatisfied with their current job's pay and benefits. Few people surveyed stated that working in news media was a lifelong career, with many stating that they planned to change careers after five years. Another Fudan University survey showed that due to unsatisfactory living conditions, 40 percent of investigative reporters "do not intend to continue to engage in the news industry."

In addition, online news reporters and editors had the youngest average age of only 28.6 years old; 98.7 percent of journalists have a college degree, with most majoring in journalism and communications.

On the revenue side, over 90 percent of journalists have a monthly income of less than 10,000 yuan (U.S. $1,628), of which 47.7 percent have a monthly income of 5,000 yuan (U.S. $814), 44.3 percent of practitioners earned between 5,001-10,000 yuan (U.S. $814-1,628) per month, and only 7 percent practitioners earned between 10,001-15,000 yuan (U.S $1,628-2,442) per month, while those with a monthly income of 15,001 yuan (U.S. $2,442) and above number only 21 people.

The survey was conducted between November 2012 and January 2013 and staff of five national news groups filled in the questionnaires. More than 2,100 effective questionnaires contributed to the analysis and grass-roots editors and reporters account for 80.5 percent of the surveyed.

The report was compiled by the School of Communication and Design of  Sun Yat-sen University and published by the People's Daily Publishing House.

(Source: chinanews.com.cn/Translated by Women of China)