Surveys show that more women survived the regime than men, causing a seri- ous gender imbalance in some regions that thrust more women into the labour force. According to a survey by Unicef, a third of the country's state employees were women in 1990, up from 1% in the 1960s. The gender ratio has now evened out, and women today make up 51% of the population of more than 14 million. Yet female employees make up only 17.8% of the local government workforce, and women are heavily under-represented in politics; just nine of the 61 seats in the senate, the upper house of the Cambodian parliament, are held by women Against this background, the Japanese researchers' findings about the leading