Wu Bimian, a villager from the Dong Nationality Style Village of Zhanli, Congjiang County at Guizhou Province, takes care of her 5-month-old son and 7-year-old daughter. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

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Women of childbearing age perform two roles: biological reproduction and social reproduction. China’s decision to allow all couples to have two children has left many wondering what impact this change in policy will have on female employment.

Therefore, on the basis of modifying data and research perspective, this article aims to analyze the negative influence that pregnancy, childbirth and infant care have on women’s employment in urban areas in order to propose plausible solutions.

Data used in the discussion is from the research project on “Impact Mechanism of Fertility Policy on Women’s Employment in Urban China” at the National Social Science Fund of China, spanning from May to September 2016.

 

General impact
According to the survey, childbearing has a negative impact on 45.8 percent of female employees in urban areas. To be specific, one in three women with children say their income has been reduced, one in four have reported it is a major hurdle in career development, while one in seven have lost their jobs.

When women lose their jobs due to childbirth, it is not only a waste of human resources and a loss of personal income, but more importantly they suffer from the devaluation of human capital, which makes it difficult for them to return to the labor market. In some cases, when they make it back to the job market, they can hardly pick up where they left, let alone earn as much as they used to.

Women hit by two-child policy
Pregnancy, childbirth, and infant care, as important parts of the reproductive process, all negatively affect women’s incomes, career development and job prospects. Among the 1,814 surveyed urban women who have been pregnant, 36.4 percent say they are constricted. Among the 1,661 urban women who have given birth or raised children, 39.5 percent and 23.1 percent, respectively, say their careers have suffered.

To start with, according to the survey, about 20 to 26 percent of women said their incomes have been affected by pregnancy while 30.1 percent and 15.5 percent attribute reductions in pay to conflicts between work and childbirth or childcare.

Though only a small proportion of pregnant women need to take time off to prevent miscarriage, many companies are reluctant to bear the cost for such absences, so they reduce wages or use other excuses to force pregnant employees to resign on their own. Once they are laid off, it becomes harder for them to find any work afterwards, thus cutting off their income.

In addition, even if some women are able to retain their jobs during pregnancy and childbirth, their company’s maternity insurance would have a significant impact on income. The survey found that some companies have maternity insurance, but in order to reduce the cost of labor, they only pay in accordance with the minimum wage, so the maternity allowance that female workers are reimbursed for is far less than their prenatal income.

Others who do not have insurance should be paid according to the labor law, but in reality no one would risk losing their job to ask for compensation. They have to accept low or no wages during pregnancy and maternity leave. 

Second, compared to childbirth, pregnancy not only lasts longer but also requires regular prenatal check-ups or sometimes miscarriage-prevention leave, so it has a greater impact on women’s career development. According to the survey, 21.3 percent women felt their career has been hampered by pregnancy, among which 15.7 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively, reported losing vocational training opportunities and promotion opportunities, with 5.5 percent getting demoted.

Childbirth and childcare hinder the career development of 21.1 percent and 13.3 percent of urban women. In particular, the proportion of women who lost their vocational training and promotion opportunities accounted for 13.8 percent and 18 percent respectively, while 5.6 percent of urban working women get demoted due to childbirth.

In general, maternity leave is relatively long, making it hard for women to participate in vocational training or be promoted, and some women even return to find that their positions have been filled and they are transferred to other posts.

In contrast, the proportion of women in urban areas who lost their training and promotion opportunities due to childcare accounted for 8.5 percent and 10.7 percent respectively, and demotion 4.4 percent. Compared with childbirth, the influence of childcare duties on the career development of urban women is relatively low. However, in the traditional concept, women more often have to devote more time and energy to caring for their children, so the sometimes conflicting roles of mothers and employees negatively impact women’s career development.

Finally, childbearing could cost women their jobs. About 10.4 percent of women lost jobs over pregnancy, 8.1 percent over childbirth and 5.4 percent over infant care.

This phenomenon is not only associated with some employers taking various measures to force female workers to resign for the sake of cutting costs, it is also caused by the shortage of social and public nursery services, which leaves women unable to balance childbearing and employment. According to our survey, 92.1 percent of urban women would like the government to provide public nurseries for children under the age of 3.

 

Policy suggestions
Childbearing should not become a burden for women. Rather, it should be recognized as a contribution that women make to national reproduction and social development. In this light, the cost of childbearing should not fall on individual women, nor companies. It should be shared by the government and society as a whole. Without public support, women struggle to balance their roles as mothers and workers, profoundly affecting their career development.
Hence, to better address the negative impact of childbearing, we propose two suggestions to strengthen women’s equal employment.

First, we need to improve the  maternity leave system. Since the implementation of the universal two-child policy, the state has cut the maternity insurance rate to reduce the burden on enterprises. In addition to reducing the costs to enterprises, the government needs to ensure that female workers will not lose their jobs or have their incomes lowered due to pregnancy and childbearing, which would require the government to step up optimization of resources allocation and increase the financial investment in maternity insurance fund.

At the same time, in order to encourage employers to provide women with long-term stable work, companies that employ more than 40 percent of female workers could be awarded with social insurance subsidies or tax relief.

Furthermore, it is suggested that the government enhance inspection on maternity insurance, punish those who have not taken part in the maternity insurance and urge them to pay the maternity insurance according to law, on time and in full, to prevent women from losing jobs or income due to childbearing, thus eventually leading to the coordinated development of individuals and the nation as well as the maximization of economic and social benefits.

Second, it is essential to promote the development of public nursery services. The government should clarify the supervision departments of public nurseries for children under the age of 3 and strengthen the supervision of the service quality. We propose that the National Development and Reform Commission, together with other agencies and nongovernmental organizations, should formulate a plan to establish public nurseries for children under the age of 3 while the financial sector should increase funding and the education sector enhance training of teachers in public nurseries and kindergartens.

It is also crucial to strengthen the top-level design of nurseries, detailing the conditions and responsibilities of nurseries and to guide social capital to provide public childcare services in community or large enterprises, offsetting the negative effects of childcare on urban women’s employment and career paths.

 

Yang Hui is from the Women’s Studies Institute of China.