For 2025, economists project strong growth for many African economies, and a considerable number of African governments entered the new year emboldened. In a sign of increasing attention on the continent, the South African presidency of the G-20 summit in 2025 will mark the first-ever G-20 summit to be hosted in Africa.
In the early days of the new Trump administration, U.S. priorities and outreach in Africa remain unknown. But China’s goals in Africa seem quite clear. China’s top diplomat recently returned from his now yearly tour of the continent. Foreign minister Wang Yi visited Namibia, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria, pledging 1 billion yuan ($136 million) in military aid to African forces. To achieve its foreign policy goals in Africa, China is looking to win over African leaders – some of whom have promoted anti-Chinese narratives for an electoral boost – as well as African publics, who have appeared, at times, skeptical of the benefits of highly visible Chinese investment on the continent.
Afrobarometer data has been telling us for some time that even though Africans generally view China positively, negative perceptions of China also exist, particularly with regard to Chinese products and labor market competition. Although generally positive in most countries, from 2014 to 2022, views of Chinese economic influence declined among a number of African countries during that time frame, as Figure 1 below shows. Our recent research examining Afrobarometer data also shows a significant gender gap in attitudes towards China. Here’s what you need to know.
Why are African women more negative on China?
Large-scale survey data from the Afrobarometer project offer more detailed insights into whether experiences with economic vulnerability can explain why women and men tend to perceive China differently. Analyzing Afrobarometer data from 37 African countries over multiple years, our study finds that women in over two-thirds of African countries perceive the influence of China less positively than men. In some cases, the gap between the views of men and women reaches 5 to 10 percentage points (see Figure 2). This gap parallels, and in fact exceeds, comparable differences in other world regions, including Latin America.
We find that a driving factor in explaining this gender gap is economic vulnerability. For many African women, the increased presence of Chinese merchants and factory owners has meant increased concerns about new competition and new challenges to their livelihoods.
Gender-based inequality in Africa is key in explaining this gender gap. Across the continent, women are overrepresented in low-wage, low-skilled jobs, informal trade, and agricultural work. Where women do find work in the formal sector, they face significant disadvantages in earnings. These economic vulnerabilities help explain perspectives on China’s presence in Africa.
For women working in the informal trading sector, Chinese engagement brings fear of competition in the marketplace. Women traders struggle to match the low prices Chinese merchants offer for imported dyed fabrics and household goods, for example.
For women working in the formal sector, attitudes towards China can be shaped by fears of or experience with exploitative and dangerous working conditions, discrimination and harassment, and low pay. Studies have documented cases of these discriminatory practices in Chinese-owned factories across Africa’s export-processing zones.
And for African women working in the agricultural sector, Chinese expansion into African agribusiness brings fears of displacement. Women have weaker property rights than men, and more tenuous access to land in many African countries.
The sense of vulnerability shapes Africans’ views of China
Our research shows that this gender gap is particularly pronounced in the agricultural sector, where workers are more economically vulnerable to Chinese engagement. The gap exists to a lesser but still meaningful extent among workers in the trade and retail sectors.
But the gap between men’s and women’s attitudes towards China disappears among respondents who are more economically secure. Because development economists have found that both education and asset ownership can mitigate economic insecurity, we used those features to measure economic security. We find that less economically vulnerable women look more favorably on China’s presence, as they are in the best position to benefit from Chinese economic engagement and take advantage of new opportunities.
Many skilled workers have found employment in the continent’s burgeoning information communications and technologies sector, for instance. This is an area where China has heavily invested as a part of the Digital Silk Road Initiative. Women with higher levels of education may see a benefit to the expansion of opportunities that Chinese firms like Huawei have provided. In this way, economic vulnerability drives the gender gap in African attitudes towards China’s influence on the continent.
How could African women’s views be heard?
The differences we find in African women’s and men’s views on China are consistent with other research pointing out a gender gap in policy preferences more broadly in Africa, often in line with structural and economic explanations. So how can those different views be represented?
As women become more visible in cabinets and legislatures across the African continent, research shows that female politicians tend to advocate for policies that are important to African women. If they begin to articulate the skepticism towards China of the women they represent, Africa’s female legislators may play a greater role in shaping the trajectory of Chinese policy in these countries. The Chinese foreign ministry may want to add meetings with women’s parliamentary caucuses to the agenda on the foreign secretary’s next “Africa tour.”
Ann Karreth is associate professor of politics at Ursinus College. She is the co-author of The 25 Issues that Shape American Politics: Debates, Differences, and Divisions (Routledge, 2017).
Johannes Karreth is associate professor of politics and assistant dean at Ursinus College. He is the co-author of Incentivizing Peace: How International Organizations Can Help Prevent Civil Wars in Member Countries (Oxford University Press, 2018).