A host promotes woolen sweater at a livestreaming studio in Tongxiang, Zhejiang Province (XINHUA) 

Traditionally, Chinese women have been associated primarilly with family roles - mothers, housewives, sisters, daughters-in-laws. But nowadays these stereotypes seem to have become outdated. 

Born in 1994, Lian Yuxin once thought that she would have an ordinary life; she didn't think that hanfu (pre-17th century traditional clothing of the Han Chinese) would completely change her life. As the founder of hanfu brand Shisanyu, Lian has millions of social media followers, helping make her brand one of the leading companies in the industry.

In 2012, Lian started a business from scratch in a 10-square-meter rented house in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. She is a model herself and wears the hanfu she designed every day. Her products have enjoyed brisk sales with their novel styles on online shopping platforms.

During the Double Eleven online shopping festival (in early November) in 2019, the sales of her company reached nearly 30 million yuan ($4.67 million), and the annual sales that year hit nearly 300 million yuan ($46.7 million). In 2020, the company completed pre-series A financing.

"It's the fast growth of e-commerce that has given an ordinary person like me an opportunity to start my own business," Lian said.

Studies show that women account for a quarter of entrepreneurs in China, and the founders of about 55 percent of new Internet businesses are female, said a white paper issued by the State Council Information Office in 2019.

Rising stars 

Figures from Taobao, one of the largest online shopping platforms in China, show that female entrepreneurs are edging out their male counterparts in the booming online shopping industry. Over 50 percent of the shops on Taobao were opened by women, according to the Women Entrepreneurs Report published by Taobao's owner Alibaba Group in 2019.

Female entrepreneurs on Taobao include not only fresh graduates and stay-at-home housewives or mothers, but also career women and even retired ladies. Those born in the 1980s and 1990s are more business-minded, with a quarter of the female shop owners are less than 26 years old. In addition, women from the northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning are more likely to start their own business.

On Taobao, female vendors dominate cosmetic, maternity and childcare products, garments, jewellery and accessories, as well as groceries and footwear.

What's fueling this momentum? A mix of powerful government support, a robust startup environment, access to educational opportunities and strong growth in e-commerce business has ushered in rapid advancements over the past several years.

"China is one of the most active regions in the world for female entrepreneurship. Both in terms of number and proportion, it is far ahead of major developed countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States," said Ding Jiachuan, Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group. After the COVID-19 epidemic, sheconomy in which the bulk of products and services target women is expected to keep flourishing.

Breaking the threshold 

Booming e-commerce has lowered the threshold to start a business for female entrepreneurs.

"Women are more wary of risks and costs than men. Compared to brick-and-mortar business, e-commerce ventures with relatively lower start-up and operating costs are more suitable for them," Yan Xiaoyu, a 31-year-old livestream host, told ChinAfrica.

Yan used to be a stay-at-home mother in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. After the outbreak of the epidemic, she found a new way to start a lucrative side-business.

In March 2020, she began to release video clips of her family life and parental experience on short video platform Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. After a year, her followers have exceeded 1 million who turn in regularly to watch her videos.

"With the accumulation of followers by updating interesting videos, I can recommend fine goods to them from home," Yan told ChinAfrica.

Last year, a well-known diaper brand even offered her 8,000 yuan ($1,200) to make a 45-second promotion video for its products. In a good month, the mother could earn as much as 100,000 yuan ($15,550) from advertising and livestreaming.

Yan is just one of many female users who have built a career on Douyin. This is representative of the way in which more and more women are leveraging the opportunities on the platform and joining it as content creators and livestreamers.

On March 9, Douyin E-commerce released the 2021 Douyin E-commerce Queen's Day Data Report, showing that female vendors can achieve a successful life of entrepreneurship through livestreaming sales of goods.

The report showed that the turnover of Douyin's Queen's Day festival, from February 27 to March 8, reached 13.63 billion yuan ($2.1 billion). During the event, female livestream hosts made up 64 percent of the sales.

Policy support 

The Chinese Government always supports and promotes entrepreneurship and innovation among women.

On September 19, 2019, the State Council Information Office released a white paper titled Equality, Development and Sharing: Progress of Women's Cause in 70 Years Since New China's Founding. It showed that since China launched the reform and opening-up drive in the late 1970s, women have increasingly diversified employment options and ampler business opportunities as the number of female workers and entrepreneurs has risen by a big margin.

The government has provided small-sum guaranteed loans with discounted interest rates to boost women employment and self-employment. Between 2009 and 2018, 6.569 million such loans worth 383.77 billion yuan ($59.67 million) were allocated. The 2017 Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition sponsored by the All-China Women's Federation attracted 560,000 participants.

According to the white paper, in past decades, over 100,000 women acquired e-commerce-related knowledge and skills through training programs launched by the All-China Women's Federation, who in turn helped 15 million women increase their income.

(Print Edition Title: Platforms for Entrepreneurship)  

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