Page 43 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

30 DAVID S.G.GOODMAN
Table 1.6 Wives of the new rich: workplace (number and percentage in Shanxi, 1996–98, by
category of interviewee)

occupation, many of those who were the wife of a manager in the state sector were also
members of the CCP themselves.

Cadre’s wives
While there were very few women appointed to leadership positions as cadres in Shanxi,
the wives of those who were the leading cadres also played an important role in the
reform process. Unlike their counterparts among the wives of the new rich, they were
almost certain, by virtue of their husband’s work, not to have worked together.
However, by the same token, they were also likely to be better educated and to be
professionally employed. Their role in reform was not as leading cadres but rather as the
professionals and managers who provided state, social and enterprise support services for
economic development: as engineers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, teachers, managers,
administrators and cadres.
As Table 1.3 indicates, the age and educational profile of leading cadres’ wives and
those of their husbands were very similar. The overwhelming majority of cadres’ wives
had received some form of higher education. Indeed, were graduation from the political
party schools to be excluded from the calculation, it might be possible to mount an argument
that leading cadres’ wives had higher levels of education than their husbands.
Moreover, in this and other respects, there were clear differences among the wives of
cadres at different levels of the system, and in particular, between those of leading cadres
within the provincial administration on the one hand, and those of the local leading cadres
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at county level and within the county on the other. Local leading cadres were less likely
to have been university educated and more likely to have received higher education only
through a Party school. The wives of local leading cadres were similarly likely to have