Can extending maternity leave and adding parental leave alleviate fertility anxiety
2021-12-07
Recently, all parts of the country have successively completed the revision of local population and family planning regulations and intensively introduced measures to encourage fertility. According to incomplete statistics, up to now, more than 20 provinces in China have completed or started amending the law, among which the extension of maternity leave, the addition of parental leave and the payment of maternity subsidies have attracted much attention. On November 26, the decision of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress on Amending the regulations of Beijing on population and family planning was adopted, which stipulates that for couples who give birth to children according to the regulations, in addition to the maternity leave stipulated by the state, the woman shall enjoy an extended maternity leave of 60 days and the man shall enjoy paternity leave of 15 days. The newly revised regulations of Zhejiang Province on population and family planning stipulates that the maternity leave for one child is 158 days, and that for two and three children is 188 days. The term of maternity leave for women shall be calculated as a natural day from the date of childbirth, including national legal holidays, rest days and occupational leave. It does not affect promotion, salary adjustment and length of service calculation. The revised population and family planning regulations of Zhejiang Province and Guangdong Province stipulate that the number of children born by remarried couples is calculated according to the number of children born jointly by remarried couples. The number of children born by remarried couples before remarriage is not combined, that is, remarried couples can also have three children after remarriage. The Shaanxi Provincial Department of justice recently solicited opinions on the Shaanxi Provincial Regulations on population and family planning (Draft for comments on the revised draft). The draft stipulates that parents who legally give birth will be given parental leave of no less than 30 days each year between the ages of 1 and 3. The reporter noted that the adjustment of family planning policies in all localities mostly stipulated the extension of maternity leave, maternity leave, parental leave for both husband and wife, etc; Payment of maternity allowance or subsidy; The expenses for the insured female employees to have three children shall be included in the payment scope of maternity insurance benefits. It is stipulated that remarried couples can also have three children. A survey of 7642 people in 25 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) released by the school of Sociology of Huazhong University of science and technology recently shows that giving birth to one child reduces the wife's employment probability by about 6.6% compared with before giving birth; For wives who continue to have a second child, their chances of employment fall by 9.3% again. Zhu Fei, Professor of organization and Human Resource Management Department of Business School of Central University of Finance and economics, said in an interview with Zhongqing daily · zhongqing.com that extending maternity leave has obvious benefits for women, but we should also see the difficulty of its implementation and the potential problems it may bring. For example, some local policies clearly stipulate that taking maternity leave does not affect promotion, salary adjustment and length of service calculation. However, in specific practice, the substantially extended leave and the possible situation of two and three children pose considerable potential challenges to employers. In the process of implementation, whether women still have jobs after taking maternity leave and whether promotion and wage adjustment can pass the corresponding assessment need to be considered. It is worth noting that in the "draft amendment to the regulations of Hunan Province on population and family planning" for public comments recently, it is mentioned in the column of "basis and reasons for amendment": too long holidays may affect women's employment, which is not conducive to the maintenance and development of women's rights in the long run. Zhu Fei believes that this paragraph is quite pertinent and is an objective and rational statement on fertility. It should be acknowledged that the pace of modern social life and work is getting faster and faster. A woman of childbearing age who leaves the workplace for a long time and then returns to the workplace faces considerable difficulties, which may have a great impact on her career development and career continuity. The survey results of Huazhong University of science and technology also show that giving birth to one child will reduce the total income of the family labor market by about 5.6%; The total labor market income of families who continue to have a second child fell again by about 7.1%. "At work, because having two or three children will have a potential impact on the development of employers and per capita efficiency, measures such as extending maternity leave and increasing parental leave may make it more difficult for women to get employed, and then make young people more anxious about fertility problems." Zhu Fei said that it is obviously unrealistic for employers to bear all these costs. It is necessary to avoid the government releasing fertility dividends The employer shall "pay the bill". "Government departments should introduce policies to compensate the cost of employers through financial subsidies, tax relief and other measures, and share the cost of childbirth. Employers can more actively cooperate with the implementation of these policies," Zhu Fei said. Ye Mingxin, a lawyer at Beijing Yixian law firm, told reporters that in order to cooperate with the implementation of the three child policy, all localities are adjusting the family planning policy. This legislative process still needs to fully absorb public opinion, listen to the voices of all parties, especially employers and female employees, and scientifically demonstrate and formulate new rules in line with the local actual situation on this basis. Zhu Fei believes that improving the fertility rate is a systematic project, which is not only to extend maternity leave and increase parental leave. It is more important for the government to invest corresponding funds to improve the supply quantity and quality of social service facilities for infant care, increase investment in the training of relevant social service professionals, and effectively solve the problem that young people dare not have children. Ye Mingxin said that at present, the extended maternity leave has maternity insurance, which can protect women's salary during the leave, but how to share the economic costs brought by the newly increased parental leave needs to be further clarified. (outlook new era)
Edit：Yuanqi Tang Responsible editor：Xiao Yu
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