On May 31, China’s Politburo announced a long-expected change to the country’s family-planning policy, increasing the number of children that families are legally allowed to have from two to three. At the same time, it declared the country would pursue a host of measures meant to support parents, including “improving maternity leave and the maternity insurance system, strengthening policies related to taxes and housing, and protecting women’s legitimate employment rights and interests.”
These proposals, primarily targeted at female workers of childbearing age and mothers who want to restart their careers, are meant to reassure working women that they can have more children while holding down a full-time job. This aligns with current policy, which largely ignores women who have already been pushed out of the workforce.
That’s unfortunate. Scholars have found that after the universal two-child policy took effect in 2016, the number of women taking career breaks longer than half a year after giving birth rose, yet policymakers have not taken any substantive steps to address this issue. The government needs to consider how to protect the rights of those who have been or are being forced to leave their positions because of their decision to have a child. For example, by providing a low-rate social insurance for stay-at-home mothers — and the small proportion of fathers — who have paused their careers.
In addition, simply ensuring moms can re-enter the traditional workforce is not enough on its own. In interviews I conducted with stay-at-home mothers, many expressed how difficult it was to find a good job after an extended break, not just because of how much time they spent out of the workforce but because they didn’t want or couldn’t return to the 9-to-5 or 9-to-9 grind. Although many mothers were interested in more flexible employment arrangements, this would leave them outside the state’s social security system.
To address this situation, the government needs to revise its social security rules, regulate work schedules, and urge enterprises and public institutions to implement measures aimed at making having a child compatible with a career. This is especially important in the context of the three-child policy. According to an academic study based on nationwide data from 2016, increasing the number of children in a family from one to two positively impacted the participation of urban women in the workforce. When the number exceeded two, however, it had a negative impact.
At the same time, it is important to remember that employment rates are only one measure of gender equality, and a high employment rate for mothers doesn’t on its own say anything about the persistence of problems like the “motherhood penalty.”
Read More at http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1007964/why-the-three-child-policy-is-just-a-start
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