All-China Women's Federation
China's nationwide people's organization for women's affairs, combining rights advocacy, public policy participation, social services, research, and the mobilization of women under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
Last updated October 9, 2026
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Overview
The All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) is a nationwide people's organization established in 1949 and recognized as the principal official organization representing women in the People's Republic of China. It operates through a large network of provincial, municipal, county, township, workplace, and community-level federations and affiliated institutions. Its stated responsibilities include representing and safeguarding women's rights and interests, promoting equality between men and women, supporting women's participation in economic and social development, assisting children and families, and contributing to research and public discussion on women's issues. The federation was created during the final stage of the Chinese Civil War as the All-China Democratic Women's Federation and was renamed the All-China Women's Federation in 1957. From its beginning, it served two connected purposes: it addressed issues affecting women and acted as a channel through which the Communist Party mobilized women for political, economic, and social campaigns. Early work included organizing women during land reform, promoting literacy and public participation, supporting changes to marriage and family practices, and encouraging women to contribute to socialist construction. The organization also helped develop research and educational activity concerning women's status and maintained international links at a time when the newly founded People's Republic faced diplomatic isolation. The ACWF was suspended during the Cultural Revolution. Its offices were taken over and many of its cadres were removed from their positions, while the independent policy and organizational work associated with the federation ceased nationally. Preparatory work to restore the organization began after the arrest of the Gang of Four, and national operations resumed in 1978. During the reform era, the federation placed greater emphasis on legal rights, employment, education, family welfare, anti-trafficking work, policy research, and the development of women's organizations. It also launched the Four Self campaign, promoting self-respect, self-confidence, self-improvement, and self-reliance. The federation has sometimes balanced advocacy with implementation of state policy. It publicized family-planning rules while also opposing coercive enforcement and raising questions about their effects on women's rights. From the 1990s, it was given a supervisory role in monitoring the implementation of government policies concerning women and was permitted to establish income-generating businesses and service organizations. Its affiliated institutions include research bodies, publications, children's and women's foundations, cultural and educational facilities, and organizations providing public-interest services. The ACWF remains a state-linked mass organization rather than an independent nongovernmental organization in the usual international sense. It participates in legislation and policy consultation, conducts public education, provides legal and social assistance, supports women's employment and entrepreneurship, and promotes family and child-related programs. Its public messaging in the Xi Jinping era has also emphasized family development, marriage and childbearing, and women's contribution to national modernization. The federation's position therefore combines institutional representation of women with the political and social priorities of the Chinese state and Communist Party.
History
The institutional history of the ACWF grew out of women's organizing in the Chinese Communist movement and in earlier Chinese campaigns against gender hierarchy, forced marriage, foot binding, domestic abuse, and restrictions on women's education and property rights. During the 1920s, the Communist Party publicly endorsed legal equality and equal pay, while both Communist and Kuomintang organizations created women's departments during the First United Front. After the alliance collapsed in 1927, Communist-controlled base areas became important laboratories for women's organizing and local administration. The Second Sino-Japanese War gave the women's movement a strongly nationalist orientation. In 1938, a women's congress in the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region identified cooperation among women, reform of abusive marriages, health improvement, opposition to foot binding, protection from domestic violence, and inheritance rights as central objectives. These concerns, combined with the Communist Party's experience organizing women in wartime and rural base areas, provided much of the institutional foundation for a national federation. On 24 March 1949, the All-China Democratic Women's Federation was established. Cai Chang became its first chairperson. The federation worked to consolidate regional women's groups and to mobilize women for land reform, socialist construction, public education, and political campaigns. Activists helped rural women articulate grievances during land reform and encouraged them to participate in public meetings. The Five Good Family campaign, introduced in 1956, linked women's participation to education, household management, neighborly cooperation, cleanliness, and personal improvement. In April 1949, the organization adopted the name All-China Women's Federation, although the name became especially associated with its formal restructuring in 1957. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the ACWF served as both an advocate on women's issues and a transmission mechanism for party policy. It supported birth-planning education, including information about contraception, abortion, intrauterine devices, and sterilization, and it organized public meetings and campaigns. It also pursued international contacts, including hosting foreign women's delegations and using women's diplomacy to create links for the People's Republic during the early Cold War. The Cultural Revolution brought the federation's national work to an end. In 1968, it was shut down as an organization considered ideologically suspect. Offices were occupied by the army, and some women cadres were sent to rural labor settings. Preparatory efforts to reconstitute the organization began in 1976 after the arrest of the Gang of Four, but the ACWF did not fully resume national operations until 1978. During reform and opening, the federation gradually broadened its agenda. It supported the Four Self campaign—self-respect, self-confidence, self-improvement, and self-reliance—and increasingly emphasized women's legal rights, employment, education, health, anti-trafficking measures, and participation in development. In 1979 it established a committee and research office devoted to compiling the history of the Chinese women's movement; historical publications followed in the 1980s. In 1991 it established the Women's Studies Institute of China, which later supported the Journal of Women's Studies. The federation was described as a supervisory body in the early 1990s, giving it a role in evaluating government implementation of policies affecting women. It was also authorized in 1992 to establish for-profit activities, reducing reliance on direct government financing and supporting service provision. By the mid-1990s it had tens of thousands of branches and a large cadre system. It worked on legal training, employment discrimination, trafficking, women's entrepreneurship, and the needs of unmarried women. Its network also incorporated or supported many women's associations, clubs, foundations, publications, museums, research institutions, and children's organizations. In the twenty-first century, the ACWF has continued to operate as a party-led mass organization with a hybrid role: it represents women's interests within the state system, provides or coordinates services, conducts research and public education, and promotes official priorities concerning families, children, marriage, fertility, and national development. Its institutional reach is extensive, but its close relationship with the party-state distinguishes it from autonomous feminist organizations and shapes the issues and forms of advocacy it can pursue.
- 1992
Journal of Women's Studies begins publication
[1]The institute began publishing a journal devoted to women's studies and related policy research.
- 1991
Women's Studies Institute established
[1]The ACWF expanded its institutional research capacity through a dedicated women's studies institute.
- 1979
Women's movement history research launched
[1]A compilation committee and research office were created to document the history of Chinese women's movements.
- 1978
National work resumed
[1]The federation was reestablished after the Cultural Revolution and supported the Four Modernizations.
- 1968
National organization closed
[1]The ACWF was suspended during the Cultural Revolution.
- 1957
Federation formally restructured
[1]The word Democratic was removed from the name as the organization became more closely incorporated into the party-state structure.
- 1956
Five Good Family campaign introduced
[1]The campaign promoted household, educational, community, and personal-improvement ideals through local women's organizations.
- 1949
National federation founded
[1]The All-China Democratic Women's Federation was established on 24 March as a nationwide women's organization.
- 1949
Name adopted in the founding period
[1]The organization became known as the All-China Women's Federation during the establishment of the People's Republic.
Products and positioning
A state-linked nationwide women's federation and public-interest organization focused on women's rights, development, family and child welfare, research, and policy implementation.
Public-interest service
Women's rights and legal assistance programs
Programs that provide rights education, legal training, consultation, and assistance concerning marriage, employment discrimination, trafficking, domestic abuse, and other issues affecting women. Delivery occurs through federation branches and affiliated institutions rather than through a single commercial product.
Research institution · 1991
Women's Studies Institute of China
An ACWF-affiliated research institution established in 1991. It supports research, policy analysis, publications, and discussion of women's development and gender-related social issues.
Media and education
Women of China publications
A group of ACWF-affiliated publications and information channels used for public education, policy communication, and reporting on women's and family issues.
Economic and social service
Women's employment and development services
Employment, training, entrepreneurship, and service-sector initiatives intended to expand women's participation in economic life. The federation has supported local enterprises, family-service work, and other income-generating arrangements.
Marketing campaigns
- 2000Women's employment initiatives
China
The ACWF supported small service-oriented entities and family-service work intended to create employment for unemployed women.
Outcome. The federation reported a development target involving opportunities for one million women, although the reference material does not provide independently verified results.
- 1978Four Self Campaign
China
The federation promoted self-respect, self-confidence, self-improvement, and self-reliance as qualities for women during the reform and modernization period.
Outcome. Became a durable framework for public education and women's development messaging.
- 1956Five Good Family Campaign
China
A nationwide campaign recognizing families associated with education, household management, neighborly cooperation, cleanliness, and self-improvement. Local women's organizations used it to promote official social and gender ideals.
Outcome. Expanded the federation's grassroots mobilization and local women's congress activity.
Brand decisions
2023
Emphasis on family and childbearing cultureStrategyBackground
The federation was instructed to reinforce family traditions and official priorities concerning marriage and fertility.
Action taken
Public messaging emphasized family development and a state-defined new marriage and childbearing culture.
Aftermath
The direction placed family and demographic policy more prominently within the federation's public agenda.
1992
Authorization to establish for-profit activitiesStrategyBackground
The federation sought greater financial flexibility and reduced dependence on direct government funding.
Action taken
It was permitted to establish businesses and income-generating service entities.
Aftermath
The policy supported a broader portfolio of employment and social-service initiatives.
1968
Closure during the Cultural RevolutionStrategyBackground
Women's organizing was criticized as bourgeois and insufficiently absorbed into the revolutionary movement.
Action taken
The ACWF was shut down and its offices were occupied by the army.
Aftermath
National federation activity ceased until post-1976 rehabilitation and restoration.
1957
Integration into the party-state structureStrategyBackground
The federation moved from a broad national women's organization toward a formally recognized mass organization within the state and party hierarchy.
Action taken
It adopted the shorter All-China Women's Federation name and took on expanded political mobilization and propaganda responsibilities.
Aftermath
The change increased institutional access and administrative reach while tying the federation more closely to official political campaigns.
Recent events
- 2023
Xi Jinping addresses the federation on family and marriage culture[1]
Other
Xi Jinping called on the federation to communicate positive family traditions and encourage a state-defined approach to marriage and childbearing.
- 2000
ACWF develops employment initiatives for unemployed women[1]
Other
The federation supported small service-oriented economic entities intended to create work opportunities for unemployed women.
- 1991
Women's Studies Institute of China established[1]
Other
The ACWF created a dedicated institute for women's studies, expanding its role in research and policy analysis.
- 1978
National operations restored after the Cultural Revolution[1]
Other
Following post-Cultural Revolution rehabilitation efforts, the ACWF resumed national work and aligned itself with the modernization program of the reform era.
- 1968
ACWF suspended during the Cultural Revolution[1]
Other
The federation was closed after being characterized as anti-revolutionary, and its offices and personnel were absorbed into Cultural Revolution structures.
- 1957
Federation renamed All-China Women's Federation[1]
Other
The organization dropped the word Democratic from its name and became more formally integrated into the state and party structure.
- 1949
ACWF established as a nationwide women's organization[1]
Other
The All-China Democratic Women's Federation was established during the final phase of the Chinese Civil War and became the national organizational framework for the women's movement in the People's Republic of China.
Sources4 sources
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