China Found Relatively Safe For Women Employees - Compared To India

A survey of women in three large cities in China has found that almost a third reported an increase in sexual harassment over the past three years; almost half of women between 16 and 25 reported increased incidents of harassment. Compared to India, where an article in The Wall Street Journal notes that "aggressive sexual harassment is a fixture of daily life," this is, presumably, considered relatively safe.

I have long thought that in traditional and/or closed societies, efforts at "modernization," or attempts to change or break traditional cultural models -- especially rapidly -- often results in death-grip holds on the old ways by those who feel most threatened, which can lead to or include harassment or other violent acts, efforts to restrict birth control or abortion, disparate wages, etc.

Supporting this view, the WSJ article notes that in 2006, a University of Chicago report stated that China's economy has been transformed rapidly and massively in the last two decades, and has seen rapid urbanization. Along with this, there has been a...