Gender equality policy of the Olympic Movement in Chinese sport governing bodies: the case of elite volleyball

Research background

IOC’s policy on gender equality involves three perspectives, which are athletes’ participation, coaching positions, and leadership roles. To be specific, gender equality in athletes’ participation means that female athletes’ participation should be the same with male athletes. Except for participation, the increase of the percentage of women’s events can also prompt gender equality to some extent. Nonetheless, different from the positive tendency of women’s participation, IOC has admitted that women are underrepresented as coaching staff at the Olympic Games. Regarding leadership roles including management and decision-making positions, IOC has set statistical targets over the past 20 years [1, 2]. For example, they required the proportion of women executive decision-making positions in National Olympic Committees (NOCs) should be more than 10 %, 20 % and 30 % by the end of 2001, 2005 and 2020 respectively. Furthermore, IOC has set concrete Gender Equality and Inclusion Objectives for 2021–2024 with five areas including participation, leadership, safe sport, portrayal, and resource allocation [3].

Literature review and multiple research gaps

According to Houlihan [4], the emergence of a worldwide organisational infrastructure for sport has positive influence on development of a global sporting culture. Scholars from almost all over the world have studied the relationship between globalisation and sport from different angles involving but not limited to politics, economics, culture and sociology [4], [5], [6], [7]. Since globalisation is originated from and rooted in Western capitalist countries, non-Western insights into globalisation are under-represented. However, several recent studies have profoundly discussed the relationship between globalisation and Chinese elite sport in economic and ideological fields, which provide substantial background for this research [8], [9], [10]. Since gender equality which has been recognised as a perennial social issue and global value, this research focuses more on cultural aspects. A combination of globalisation and gender issues tends to be under-researched in the sporting context. Therefore, this research could fill the gap of gender issues in sport globalisation studies.

In addition to the gap of gender elements in sport globalisation studies, there is another research gap regarding gender-related policy in Chinese sport development. Due to traditional gender relations, Asian countries are relatively late adopter of gender-based movement. Since socio-cultural system is different from the West, non-Western countries including China may pay more attention to the communication and negotiation with the IOC in terms of sport policies. Among sport studies on gender and women in the context of China, a multitude of studies have provided a sound research background from either feminist theory or socio-historical aspect [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20]. Nevertheless, there is a dearth that gender equality is regarded as a particular perspective of policy in sport research. Hence, this research could also fill the gap of gender equality issue in Chinese sport policy studies (Figure 1).

Figure 1:

Graphical representation of the study. Figure created by with BioRender.

Research aims and objectives

The aim of this research is to investigate if and how the IOC’s gender equality policy has influenced the development of Chinese Olympic progress (1990s–2020s), meanwhile, if and how China has responded to its penetration, in relation to the Chinese sport governing body of volleyball. Premised on research background and research aim, specific research objectives are:

1. To explore the influence of the global IOC’s gender equality policy and advocacy of women empowerment on Chinese elite sport through the case study of Chinese volleyball governing body;

2. To investigate how Chinese sport governing body of volleyball responded to global gender equality policy implemented by IOC and the factors behind.

Theoretical framework: ‘reach’ and ‘response’ dichotomy of globalisation

Houlihan’s [4] globalisation framework which has been updated by Tan [21] mainly reflects in ‘reach’ and ‘response’ dichotomy, which regards globalisation as a bidirectional process between international level and local level rather than a kind of oppressive penetration (Figure 2). Three primary concerns are economic, political, and cultural emphasis. This research is based on cultural globalisation because the focus of this study is on IOC’s gender equality policy which serves as a recognised global value. Moreover, the process of response which relates to the attitude of national authorities is generally typed as passive, participative and conflictual. In specific, the passive response which means the complete import of global culture has two possibilities. First, the recipient culture accepts the external culture with an attitude of enthusiasm but in a passive way. Second, the recipient culture has no ability to challenge the pressure of the penetration of the global culture. Participative response reflects that the relationship between global culture and local culture reaches a balance in the context that global culture has a sufficient control over resources to provide local culture with leverage. Last, conflictual response indicates that local culture with the possession of sufficient resources has an ability to boycott global culture, or the recipient culture has its own set of value in order to reject the penetration of the external culture.

Figure 2:

Patterns of globalisation (adapted from [21]).

Ontological and epistemological assumptions

The main method of this research is semi-structured interviews, the perspectives of researchers cannot be excluded from the collection and analyses of data during the research process. Hence, this research is based on the position of constructionism. Besides, this research is considered as an interpretivism research. Data collected from semi-structured interviews are mostly based on interviewees’ own feelings, experiences, and opinions [22, 23]. Therefore, subjective, and critical perspectives of research participants and the researchers’ understanding of the answers are inevitably involved into the process of data analysis. In addition, due to complicated characteristics of the development of gender equality policy in Chinese sport governing bodies which cannot be simply measured in a numerical way and are unrealistic to quantify, qualitative data is more appropriate, solid, and effective.

Case selection

The criteria for case selection of elite volleyball are mainly based on three considerations. First, since this research focuses on the interaction between IOC and Chinese sport governing body, particular sport selected in this study should be an Olympic sport with a relatively long history of development in both the Olympic Movement and China. Volleyball had been included in the Olympic Games when China returned to IOC and the Olympic Games in 1979 and 1984 respectively. Second, given the fact that volleyball has been included in one of the prominent Olympic sports that China attached great importance to and given more support compared to other sports, the findings of the case of volleyball could reflect China’s mainstream feedback on IOC’s gender equality policy. Third, Olympic performance can be recognised as the most direct and intuitive factor that reflects the situation of gender equality at the Olympic Games.

Data collection: semi-structured interviews

Interview questions which were formulated according to globalisation theory mainly involved gender equality policy themes such as proportion, financial support, training facilities and media attention between men and women athletes, and percentage, power distribution, and opportunities of recruitment and promotion for men and women coaches and officials in leadership roles (Appendix 1).

Regarding interview sampling strategy, based on purposive sampling strategy [24], interviewees were identified and selected according to the relevance, seniority, and feasibility with research topic. To be specific, since IOC’s gender equality policy involves three dimensions of athletes, coaches and leaders, the sample is divided up according to these three categories [24]. In addition, in order to make sure the authority of the information provided by the interviewees, snowball sampling is also utilised to qualify the identity of research participants. The details of interviewees are illustrated in the table below (Table 1).

Data analysis

This research is subjected to thematic analysis. NVivo 12 Plus which is a qualitative data analysis computer software package was employed during the process of thematic analysis. In specific, interview transcripts were imported into NVivo. Meaningful units were extracted from transcripts and coded as various tags. Same or similar tags were systematically merged. Then tags with different aspects of the same research targets (athletes/coaches/administrative leaders) were grouped into the same category. Last, all of the categories were organised into sub-themes and themes based on theoretical framework.

Chinese elite volleyball athletes: a participative response

Chinese elite volleyball coaches: a conflictual response

Chinese elite volleyball leaders: a passive response

Continuously updated international policy, but inconsistent compliance at national level

According to IOC [30], gender equality Policy has been constantly updated with data collected from each Olympic Games. However, in the context of Chinese elite volleyball governing bodies, there is no sector accountable for gender equality. The absence of a specific department responsible for gender equality reflects China’s lack of attention to gender equality policy in elite sport. Moreover, without the supervision and management of an independent department for gender equality issues, international policy might be difficult to be efficiently implemented at national level with orderly guidance.

Based on excellent international sporting performance of Chinese female elite athletes, some interviewees believed that under the current situation that Chinese women athletes outperformed male athletes, it is not urgent and crucial to take gender equality centred on women among athletes as consideration. Some other interviewees expressed that gender equality is not given enough attention in Chinese elite sport system because there is no gender inequality, or rather, China is already doing better than other countries, especially among East Asian countries that share the same cultural background [31, 32]. However, it is ironic that other East Asian countries such as Japan or South Korea have implemented particular projects or legislation for promoting the participation of women athletes and the status of women’s sports [33], [34], [35]. In terms of tangible policies and regulations, China does not seem to be able to show that it has a well-developed system to guarantee gender equality and eliminate gender inequality in elite sport. Therefore, it is now most urgent and important for China to establish a special gender equality section to act as a mediator, to deliver the international message and to facilitate its implementation at national level.

Policy may be implemented with symbolic measure in China without monitoring system

There is no specific monitoring system in terms of the implementation of IOC’s gender equality policy at national level. IOC does not compulsorily require sub-ordinated NOCs to apply any of the classified items of gender equality policy in their countries. Thus, to ostensibly accommodate international policy of gender equality which has not been regarded as an essential issue, China may demonstrate their support to international policy by taking symbolic and seemingly plausible but insufficient actions. The existence of women leaders is for the sake of appearances/packaging/propaganda rather than actual mechanism to achieve equality. The suggestion is to build up an efficient monitoring system between IOC and Chinese sport governing bodies regarding gender equality policy meanwhile raising the education and awareness of gender equality within Chinese elite sport system.

In addition, the lack of monitoring system can also lead to ignorance and misinterpretation, or blindly copying of policy [32]. IOC’s policy on gender equality is based on existing fact that women have been suffering from inequality in elite sport and the Olympics. However, based on the historical outstanding performance of Chinese elite women’s volleyball, male elite volleyball athletes need to be given more attention. A situation peculiar to the country should be taken into consideration in the process of policy implementation at national level regarding a particular sport. Blindly implementing international policy without domestic consideration when the policy is not in line with the national situation could only lead to a vicious circle in terms of the development of Chinese elite men’s volleyball.

Referees should be included in policy contents in addition to athletes, coaches and leaders

In the process of data collection of semi-structured interviews, a certain number of interviewees expressed the similar view that the increasing number of Chinese women have been involved in the group of professional referees at both international and national level. The increase in the number of female referees is even greater than that of female athletes, coaches and leaders, which may be due to the small base of the original number of female referees in Chinese elite sport system. Hence, gender balance of referees who can be regarded as an important group of elite sport events is a crucial platform to present gender equality achievements and is strongly suggested to be classified as one of the aspects involved in IOC’s gender equality policy.

Limitations and inspirations for future research

Based on the quest for depth rather than generalisability, the findings of this research regarding elite volleyball will not be appliable to the rest of sport governing bodies in the context of China. Each case study can only reflect the situation of policy implementation in terms of the specific sport and its governing body. Second, in terms of data collection, semi-structured interviews conducted in this research mainly focused on the perspectives of athletes and coaches within Chinese elite volleyball system. Due to the sensitivity of gender equality issues in China and the difficulty of establishing contact with senior leaders, not many potential interviewees in leadership positions, especially ones with international background, such as the officials from IOC, were included in the list of interviewees.

Therefore, a wider range of case studies should be selected to enrich generalisability regarding the development of IOC’s gender equality policy in China. Besides, for more comprehensive research findings and the depth of discussion, the connection with a greater number of officials/experts in relation to gender equality in sport from both international and national levels should be established in order to collect multi-faceted information. Finally, since IOC’s gender equality policy and statistics have been keeping updated, further results with respect to the case of volleyball should be demonstrated in future research.