MIRANDA Lin, 42, was recently promoted to head of the strategic planning department in a gigantic state-owned company’s Shanghai branch.

A new broom sweeps clean. But to many people’s surprise, her first move was to set up a lactation room for all female employees in the company.

“I had rather difficult times when I breastfed my son six years ago, and it was also key moments in my career. It has been on my mind since I first heard about the promotion,” says Lin, the youngest woman in her company to head a department.

“It’s not part of my job in strategic planning, but I want to help create a better work environment and smoother career path that takes into consideration the biological conditions for fellow women who work in the company,” she adds.

Only five years ago, a lactation room was rare even in cities like Shanghai or Beijing.

Now, women ask, “if men can have their smoking rooms, and smoking is not even a must, what’s preventing women from having lactation rooms?” Many women joined the hot topic on Weibo, writing out their demands.

An increasing number of Chinese workers are making demands for such facilities and services, a result of improving awareness and more proactive attitudes toward gender equality, especially in the workplace.

In return, various surveys have shown Chinese women to be among the best represented and cared for in the workplace, especially at senior levels, although representation in top positions such as C-levels and trust board is still low.

Community Business, a Hong Kong-based nonprofit organization specializing in corporate responsibility, released on Monday its latest benchmark of gender diversity across multinational companies in Asia.

“Gender Diversity Benchmark for Asia 2014” surveyed over 30 multinational companies across China’s mainland, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore.

The mainland ranks at the top in terms of overall representation of women in the workplace. At the junior level, 64.9 percent of all workers are women. The figure is 35.6 percent at the senior level.

Compared with its previous surveys in 2009 and 2011, the representation at senior levels has improved significantly, from 13 percent in 2009 and 20.7 percent in 2011.

“Overall, we are pleased to see some signs of real progress in this latest study,” says Fern Ngai, CEO of Community Business. “In particular, we commend China on its strong performance and efforts in promoting equality of women in the workplace. While China’s economic growth creates greater opportunities for women to contribute to this growth, women also have pressure to work because of the rising cost of living.

“In addition, the one-child policy means that daughters, as the only child, have access to the best education and are expected to pursue a career. To make the most of this talent pool of educated women, we call for the commitment of companies in China to building a sustainable pipeline from entry level to the very top,” Ngai adds.

The survey shows a big leak in the pipeline between middle- and senior-level positions, “indicating women locally continue to face barriers in reaching the top positions,” the survey points out.

“The trend is that most of my female clients are getting more and more concerned about the work environment, especially whether it is female-friendly,” says Huang Lingling, an independent executive search consultant.

“In the past, many women were happy just to be promoted to senior levels. Now, many of them ask, ‘does the company take its women employees seriously? Is there more space up there for women in this company? Do they treat women equally here? Do they have women in the board or in C-levels’?”

Huang considers it an excellent trend.

“You have more women aware of such issues, which push the companies to do better in order to attract excellent women, and these women are more likely to advance in their careers in such companies, and they surely will help the companies to perform even better in terms of gender diversity,” Huang says. “Then you get a great snowball effect.”

Huang thinks the traditional value that puts a heavy weight on family makes Chinese companies more understanding of women’s familial responsibilities. Many companies, especially small and medium-size enterprises, are rather flexible when their female employees need some adjustment in their work schedule to cope with family responsibilities.

Community Business has also found women to be encouraged to work, according to their interviews with male executives for the study.

“China has a strong history of promoting equality of women and ensuring they are economically active,” Ngai says, quoting the executives interviewed.

“The government has long encouraged women to work. With the rising cost of living, many women are expected and relied on to contribute to the family income. The more women going into the job market, the bigger the pool of female talent in the pipeline and available for senior positions.”

Peggy Zhang, a 28-year-old accountant working for a local training service firm, has benefited from such flexibility. Zhang’s company is allowing her to take one hour for breastfeeding every day for six months. She can decide which hour of the day she wants to use for the break, making life much easier for the mother who gave birth three months ago.

The survey also found that companies across the region, particularly in China, are taking commendable steps to create an enabling environment for female employees. It revealed that the practice of flexible work arrangements is very well-established in China, with 93.1 percent of companies offering it to their employees.

The most popular arrangements are flexible working hours, working from home and working part time.

“There used to be something called a 27-year-old rule,” Huang, the executive search consultant, says. “When a woman is 27 years old, she is about five years into her career, and it’s also around the time she is expected to get married and have a baby. It used to be the dividing line where women choose between career or family.

“Much less so today, as flexible work hours, cheap labor of ayi here, and the common practice of grandparents taking care of children make it much easier for women to achieve both.”