The Chinese Career Women Health Situation White Paper was released at the Global Professional Women Sustainable Development Summit in Shanghai last weekend. The event, co-organized by She Power (SPO), the Global Times and Rui Wen, highlighted women's career development and health reality.

The white paper revealed that 75 percent of 20,000 surveyed women are in sub-healthy conditions. With 64 percent of them going to a hospital at least once per year. Breast cancer posed the biggest threat. The study further pointed out that, under high pressure in their careers, women do not have enough time to care for themselves, which leads to deteriorating memory, a lack of sleep, fatigue and physical pain.

Daisy Qiu, CEO of Rui Wen, claimed that modern women play an irreplaceable role in both family and career. Thus the whole of society should recognize the health challenges women face, and then try to find a solution to the issue. This would cultivate a multi-win environment for women, enterprises and society. Only by doing so, the speakers said, women can truly achieve sustainable development.

Shanghai TV anchor Yuan Ming (left) serves as moderator of the roundtable session of Global Professional Women Sustainable Development Summit. Photos: Courtesy of the organizers

What power means

In dealing with the situations that the white paper stated, speeches delivered by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn from Mindfulness and Wendy Wu, founder of Yiqi, told career women how to find their inner power while under pressure to have long-term sustainable psychological energy.

Leadership is also a necessity for the development of career women, Athena International CEO Andrea Steveson Connor said, with the female growth model based on cases of female career development they have collected over 35 years.

A highlight of the summit was a roundtable session with six influential businesswomen, with Shanghai TV anchor Yuan Ming as moderator. The session pointed out that the evolution of career women witnessed the fight of IQ, EQ and great physical condition.

The six guests were Wu Danru, writer and anchor from Taiwan, Zhao Ping, Allergan Chinese CEO, Phi Skin CEO Kang Yajun, Yang Hui from Vivid Media, Virginia Tan, Lean In China president and co-founder and Grace Lee, Head of Communications of Bayer Greater China.

They shared their personal ups and downs both in life and career and how they make decisions when they are at turning points.

In answering what "power" means in She Power, the voices agreed that one should exercise all your capabilities; be confident and treat every detail seriously; every big and strong woman has a unique power; be fearless and persistent; set personal targets for every period; achieve personal success first then help others succeed.

Daisy Qiu speaks at the event.

Gender inequality exists

The participants also agreed that gender inequality does exist and that it has become harder for women to pursue higher goals after turning 45 years of age. At the same time, a balance between career and family was also unavoidably discussed during the session.

Li Rong, deputy chairwoman from the Shanghai Women's Federation, stated that there are 3.6 million very influential career women in Shanghai, accounting for 40 percent of the city's entire workforce. Their health situation is thusly of great importance to society as a whole. 

The federation pays high attention to six fields: health, family, politics, social life, family welfare, psychological health and interests protection. Li hopes that the results from the white paper will help her federation to set related policies.

Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin sent a video clip to wish the event a great success and all the women happy and successful. The Global Times' Chinese edition's Shanghai general manager, Zhang Chuanhu, also expressed their newspaper's awareness of women's health and its social responsibility.

On behalf of the newspaper, Zhang presented certificates to enterprises that won awards during the summit.

Zhang Chuanhu speaks at the event.