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

Objectives: This research based on the theoretical framework of globalisation focuses on the development of gender equality policy in the Olympic Movement and the implementation of IOC’s gender equality policy in the context of Chinese elite volleyball.

Methods: In addition to documentary analysis, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with key insiders within Chinese elite volleyball system to provide a comprehensive understanding of the IOC’s gender equality policy implementation. The analysis involved perspectives of athletes’ participation, coaching positions, and leadership roles according to three main elements of the IOC’s gender equality policy.

Results: The findings demonstrated that the responses of Chinese elite volleyball to IOC’s gender equality policy are participative, conflictual, and passive in terms of the gender balance of athletes’ participation, coaches’ positions, and the representation of leadership roles respectively.

Conclusions: IOC recommended subordinated stakeholders including NOCs to implement gender equality policy. The attitude of Chinese elite volleyball governing body towards gender equality is generally positive. However, IOC’s gender equality policy is not consistently transferred at national level. Policy might be implemented with symbolic measure in China without monitoring system. Referees should be included in policy contents in addition to athletes, coaches and leaders. In addition, 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.