text: Gender equality was also a popular topic among radicals during the May Fourth and New Culture Movement. The Kuomintang party further promoted marriage freedom and gender equality in Legal Reforms. The 1930 Civil Code perceived both men and women as equal citizens and granted women more agency to negotiate their interests in marriage and family. Women were entitled to inherit property from their fathers for the first time. The law also elevated mothers to the equal status of fathers in terms of rights over children. In legal practice, many female litigants utilized the new legal codes to defend their personal interests.
  Women also made up for a considerable proportion of the entire workforce in urban areas. In Shanghai, most cotton-mill workers were women. Female labor was also important workforce in other industries, including flour mills, carpet making, and cigarette rolling. There were also native-place divisions among urban female workers.
  Similar to the gender line, generational hierarchy also went through significant transformation under the Legal Reforms. Instead of preaching “parents can never be wrong,” the new criminal and civil codes granted children more agency and treated both children and parents as equal citizens. The Kuomintang party-state changed the former generational hierarchy, backed by the principle of filial piety, to mutual legal bonds between parents and children.
  Mao Era and the transition (1949 to 1978)
  Entering the People's Republic of China (PRC) era, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), adopting the Soviet style, transformed the state economy into the centrally planned economy. Both urban and rural areas underwent significant social, political, and economic changes brought by land reform and collectivization. Instead of judging through the amount of owned property, the state imposed new standards to determine one's social status. The standards included one's political class, urban or rural household registration, gender, and ethnic classification.