Dr Jieyu Liu in one of the companies where she conducted some of her research interviews.

One of the gendered consequences of China's recent economic reforms is the emergence of the 'white-collar beauty' phenomenon. Preliminary interviews indicated that highly-educated young women often aspired to such jobs, where they expected to deploy feminine charms and skills in interactions with company clients. Their accounts suggested that they were experiencing new forms of inequality in the workplace.

Funded by a British Academy Small Research Grant (SG-48096), this project aims to explore the social impact of China's economic transitions upon young educated women. Dr Jieyu Liu has finished seven months fieldwork in China, through participant observation in the workplaces and the entertainment venues to which the women had to accompany the company's clients and in-depth interviews with staff in various Chinese companies.

Currently she is analysing and writing up the data. By examining the situation facing educated women who had to negotiate a sexualized work culture in a society where women's sexuality was strictly moralized and rarely discussed, this project hopes to illuminate the sexual politics and demand inherent in the operations of commercial companies in China's new market economy and to enhance knowledge of the position of professional women in the new labour market in East Asia.