Half of Chinese refuse to work with HIV/AIDS carriers

Most Chinese would refuse to work alongside a person infected with HIV/ AIDS, an academic said Monday, citing a recent survey.

"A large number of Chinese are willing to discriminate in the workplace for health reasons," Cai Dingjian, director of the Constitutionalism Research Institute of China University of Politics and Law, told reporters.

In a survey conducted by Cai and his colleagues in 10 cities covering 3,500 people, 52 percent of the respondents said they would not work with an HIV/AIDS carrier, while 49 percent said the same of Hepatitis B carriers.
More than 55 percent of the repondents said they would not hire carriers of either disease.

The survey suggested other causes of discrimination at work include physical appearance.

It showed 70.1 percent of male respondents said good looks were important for women if they wanted to get ahead in the labour market.

Although China has laws opposing work-related discrimination and promoting equality at work, the laws are not rigorously enforced, Cai said.