[6] The implementation of compulsory universal education in 1971, followed by an extension to nine years in 1978, gave rise to an increased number of women elites.
[12] Half of the teenage girls in Hong Kong were discouraged from focussing on mathematics and sciences during secondary school, which lead to their lessened self-concept in STEM.
[12] Thus, the sex ratio of students enrolled in UGC-funded engineering and technology programs is an imbalance, at 29.5% for females and 70.5% for males in 2016.
[2] Employment in Hong Kong can be enjoyed by women, who possess rights such as maternity protection and sick leave.
[15] In spite of the open-minded and relatively westernised culture of Hong Kong, the seemingly equal and fair workplace still poses obstacles on the way of women's career paths.
[16] 72.1% of females agreed that an increasing number of successful women is a positive social phenomenon, while only 59.6% of males shared the same view.
[16] The data showed that men, having the invisible privilege obtained from unequal gender perceptions, are content with the current situation and are more reluctant of the rising status of women, which might pose a threat to their career prospects.
Women account for only 11% of the total director pool of Hong Kong's listed issuers, and 33% of senior management roles.
[15] According to a 2021 report by the Credit Suisse Research Institute, women comprise 13.7% of company boardrooms in Hong, which is lower than the global average of 24%.
[19] The necessity of building a family, an important Chinese social value cultivated by the Confucian ideology, has reduced in popularity in recent years, as a considerable proportion of the population found singlehood comfortable.
[16] A survey demonstrated a low desire to have children among the unmarried, with 22.1% females and 21.5% males disagreeing that life was empty without having a child.
The traditional picture that men are the financial backbones of the family and primarily deal with external affairs is no longer the mainstream perception.
In Hong Kong, women tend to work outside to focus on their career development and hire a domestic helper to ease their double burdens.
[26] Hong Kong, like other developed nations in Asia, such as Japan and South Korea, has a strong tradition of women being housewives after marriage, but since the 1990s this has been challenged.
However, it is important to note that in China, marriage is based on strong family ties and relationships, despite any lack of romance.
Executive Council is the highest authority in policy-making in Hong Kong, in which female members were slightly increased from 16% in 2007 to 26% in 2015.
[30] Concerning women's leadership outside the governmental sector, the imbalanced sex ratios of the leading position in the enterprise world are even more serious than in government, with only one female in a chief executive role among 42 listed companies.
[33] In gender division of labor, women are expected to be the homemaker even though some of them are the breadwinner at the same time, meaning it can be difficult for them to strike a balance between family and work.
Getting promoted is accompanied by more time devoted to the workplace, which places women at a disadvantage since they need to fulfill household responsibility as well.
[30] The situation might be even worse in the finance and business industry which require longer working hours to handle fierce competition.
[30] A lot of people in Hong Kong still uphold the traditional gender ideology that men's status should always be superior to women's.
[39] According to statistics from the Social Welfare Department, there were 3,917 reported cases of being physically abused by spouse or cohabitant, in which 83% of victims were women while only 17% were men.
[40] Factors commonly observed in China, contributing to domestic violence, encompass low socioeconomic status, power disparities between partners, marital conflicts, adherence to traditional gender roles, and the involvement of alcohol or illicit drugs.
Under the influence of the traditional patriarchal system, women might internalize their submissive role and therefore are less likely to challenge the status quo, resist against IPV or other forms of violence by non-partners, or seek help from society.
[49] The joining of a public figure into the movement encouraged more victims of sexual harassment to open up on the internet or ask for help from organizations.
Nonetheless, the movement is considered a failure in Hong Kong with people speculating whether the case Lui mentioned in her post is true.
Since they have to rely on their husband or partner to receive financial support for daily expenditure, they tend to tolerate the violence and not to resist.
However, resourceful women are also vulnerable to violence if their husband or partner strongly upholds the traditional gender ideology.
Besides new immigrants brought by cross-border marriage, husband's unemployment and economic pressure, pregnancy and extramarital affairs are also found to be the risk factors of potential violence toward women in Hong Kong.
[54] This group was responsible for drafting the government's Sex Discrimination bill in 1995,[55] which advocated for women's legal, political, and economic rights.