CPPCC member calls for longer paternity leave

A file photo of a family of four, including a father, a mother and two children. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

This year's session of China's top political advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), comes about a year after the country loosened its family planning policy and allowed all couples to have a second child.

At this year's session, topics such as how to protect rights of moms in their career development have been hotly contested among CPPCC members.

Some of them are proposing that longer paternity leave should be put in place so that fathers can play a more active role in raising the child. It then allows mothers to become better prepared for returning to work after going through labor.

Zhang Shiping is a CPPCC member who currently serves as the deputy director for the Special Committee for Social and Legal Affairs.

"To implement paternity leave policies for male employees strictly following government regulations is crucial for easing the burden of mothers and for protecting women's rights. And this has been written as an integral part into our government's family planning policy," said Zhang.

Under current government regulations, the length of paternity leaves varies from province to province, ranging from 7 to 30 days.

However, Zhang Shiping pointed out that the reality is that these regulations haven't been fully implemented by employers.

"The situation is like this. Family planning regulations by both the central and local governments have clearly stipulated that fathers are entitled to paternity leave. And of course mothers and company managers do agree that fathers should have such leave. But the number of fathers who can actually enjoy such leave is very small—not even half of them can," said Zhang.

Zhang added that this can be personal choices made by the father because of career considerations. But sometimes companies are just ignoring government policies for the purpose of keeping employees at work.

32-year-old Men Shu is now a mother of two sons, a one-year-old and a two-year old. She said her husband wasn't given paternity leave and she struggled with the two kids.

"My husband's company hasn't been carrying out the paternity leave policy so he didn't get any. I feel that pressure is getting higher for women these days. You have to work and you have children to take care of. I just hope that men can and will be given longer paternity leaves," said Men Shu.

Men Shu used to work for a state-owned enterprise before becoming a mother. She now plans to look for teaching positions in college so that she could have holidays during winter and summer to spend with her children. Looking ahead, with two children to take care of, she said she fears the mounting pressure to balance between family and career.

Zheng Zhenzhen is a researcher at Institute of Population and Labor Economics of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She said, as a society which traditionally stresses more on women's domestic responsibilities, the Chinese should embrace the idea of equal participation from both mothers and fathers in raising children.

"We've always been focusing on the mom and assuming that bringing up children should be a mom's job only. But it is not and the pressure should be shared. Today fathers in China are only taking up a small portion of the responsibilities. If we all believe that the task of taking care of kids should entirely fall on a mom's shoulder and if we don't change this idea, there's no way we can change the current situation," said Zheng.

To ease the burden of career mothers, both Zhang Shiping and Zheng Zhenzhen said improving public child care service is an urgent task for the government. This is because the country is now in serious lack of both professional caregivers and care facilities, especially for children under 3 years old.