The situation is only slightly easier in the private sector, where performance is often the key factor in promotion. But there are practical reasons that make it harder for women.
"It is harder in Chinese society because business is done through relations. Men bond with each other and it isn't very easy for a woman to break through these bonds. When they go to karaoke together, what can you do?" says Lina Wong, managing director at Colliers International's East and Southwest China and China Investment Services.
"That said, you have to find other ways to bond rather than just giving up or feeling the situation is unfair."
At the same time, the disparaging phrase and mentality sheng nu, literally "leftover women," hangs over many career women, warning that their market value is declining ever faster after what is considered the prime time to marry and bear a child.
The age was once 30 but now it is 27. Still, many women, and especially their parents, really start to panic as they turn 25.
"Women PhDs" is another disparaging expression like "leftover women," because when a woman gets a PhD, she is often well past the so-called prime age and is no longer desirable."Freeze your eggs!" suggests Huoy-Ming Yeh, managing director of SVB Capital China, who has withstood the same pressure to marry. "I would have frozen my eggs if the technology had been mature in my time."
Yeh went to the United States when she was 15. After graduating from Wellesley College, she earned a master's degree in electrical engineering and worked as an engineer credited with three patents before getting an MBA from MIT. She didn't think much about marriage until she was already in her early 30s.
She got married at 39, gave birth to her daughter at 42 and moved to Shanghai in 2008.
"Freeze your eggs. That's what I will tell my daughter if she decides to marry late," Yeh says. "Then you are not tied to the biological clock. You still need to think about how old you are when you raise a child. But ultimately, you get at least a 20-year window to do what you want for life."
Shanghai's - and China's - first egg bank is under construction, which began in late 2010, but it is not yet open to the public. Zhao Xiaoming from the egg bank at Renji Hospital says, "We have the technology, but we are waiting for the go-ahead from the National Ministry of Health."
Yeh is also chairperson of Women in Leadership China, a platform for senior women leaders in venture capital and private equity where they connect and help promote the next generation of women leaders in China.
For the next generation of Chinese women, it doesn't get easier after getting married. The onerous label "leftover women" is lifted, but it's replaced by the requirement of caring for a child, husband, parents and household - all the while contributing to household income.
The "Blue Book on Women's Life," published by Social Sciences Academic Press, reports that urban women contributed 35.8 percent of household income in 2010. With the high cost of living and rearing a child, most women must work after they marry.
"My salary is almost the same as my husband's, but my in-laws still expect me to spend more time at home. My parents always call me when they need something because they think my little brother should be busy with work. I am also busy," says Zhang Qi, communications manager at Shenliang Expositions Co. After she gave birth two years ago, her parents urged her to get a job with regular hours.
Men experience life of pregnant women to mark International Women's Day
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