Before the opening of the National Two Sessions, the proposal to "remove the 35-year-old age limit for civil servants" rushed to the hot search.
Jiang Shengnan, a representative of the National People's Congress and a researcher at Wenzhou University, put forward this proposal at the National People's Congress for two consecutive years.
"The invisible age discrimination of 35 years old has always existed in the workplace." Jiang Shengnan said in an interview with a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily.
This year's government work report clearly stated that "resolutely prevent and correct gender, age and other employment discrimination, and focus on solving outstanding problems that violate the legitimate rights and interests of workers." Jiang Shengnan believes that correcting gender and age discrimination should first start with government agencies and state-owned enterprises and institutions. , and adopt guiding policies and measures for private enterprises.
Government departments should set an example when recruiting, and gradually lift the 35-year-old restriction on civil service examinations.
"Because of age restrictions, being unable to enter the workplace is a huge waste of talents"
Jiang Shengnan said that a large part of her readers are in the 35-year-old age group. In the process of communicating with them, she learned about the difficulties faced by this group.
In recent years, some companies have been affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and their business conditions are not good. Some employees need to be re-employed. The difficulties brought by the 35-year-old threshold are even more obvious.
"These people didn't lose their jobs because they couldn't keep up with their knowledge level. Many people have good experience and level, but they are still stumped by the 35-year-old hurdle to find a job."
In Jiang Shengnan's view, when a person reaches the age of 35, he has gone through several years of professional training, and his business and people tend to mature.
It would be a real shame if you couldn't go back to work because of age restrictions.
Today's young people are mostly in their early twenties when they graduate from school. After two or three years of work, they stabilize and get married and have children.
Soon the parents will retire, and there will be old ones and young ones.
She believes that if this group of people is excluded from the workplace because of age restrictions, it will not only be a huge waste of talents, but will also make many people worry that they will be eliminated when they reach a certain age, which will affect the marriage rate, fertility rate, and workplace investment. degree, career planning, etc., this will become a big social problem.
Lin Yong, a representative of the National People's Congress and a professor at South China Normal University, also brought a proposal to lift the 35-year-old restriction on civil service examinations.
He told reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that the "35-year-old limit" has become a threshold set by many units when recruiting talents, which does not meet the needs of long-term balanced development of the population.
Lin Yong introduced that in June 1994, the "Interim Regulations on the Recruitment of National Civil Servants" was issued, and the basic condition that must be met for applying for national civil servants is "under the age of 35".
In 2019, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee revised the "Regulations on the Recruitment of Civil Servants" to clarify the age requirement for civil servants to be "over 18 years old and under 35 years old".
Since then, this standard has been adopted by some institutions and enterprises when recruiting.
Lin Yong pointed out that at present, the post-90s and post-00s have become the main body of marriage and childbirth. Affected by multiple factors, the phenomenon of delayed marriage and childbirth is very prominent.
This means that if a woman has a child after the age of 25, she will be over the age of 30 or even 35 after having a second or third child.
At this time, if women want to return to the workplace, they will be rejected by the "35-year-old limit".
"Releasing the '35-year-old limit' is conducive to women taking into account both age-appropriate childbearing and career development. It is an important supporting measure to adjust the fertility policy, promote population growth, and increase demographic dividends." Lin Yong said.
Lin Yong also proposed a solution in the proposal.
"Organs and units should play a leading and exemplary role in exploring the release of the '35-year-old limit' for civil servant examinations." Lin Yong suggested that the second paragraph of Article 18, Chapter 4 of the "Regulations on the Employment of Civil Servants" stipulates that applicants for civil servants must meet the "age of 35". The condition of "over the age of 18 and under the age of 35" is revised to "over the age of 18".
He believes that in areas where there is a shortage of talents, high-end talents, more professional positions and economically backward areas, pilot projects can be explored and the age limit for admissions can be lifted.
Then, explore the full liberalization of age restrictions. According to the principles of “adjustment in small steps, flexible implementation, classified advancement, and overall consideration” proposed in the “14th Five-Year Plan” of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, steadily implement the gradual extension of the statutory retirement age, and gradually Raise the minimum payment period for receiving basic pensions," and consider implementing delayed retirement and fully liberalizing the age limit for civil servants to apply for examinations. "It is necessary to advance both simultaneously."
Extending maternity leave across the board could exacerbate female employment discrimination
In recent years, policy adjustments to maternity leave have repeatedly sparked heated discussions.
In general, the extension of maternity leave for women is the general trend.
Especially since the implementation of the "three-child" policy in August 2021, holidays related to marriage and childbirth have generally been extended in various places.
At present, the range of female maternity leave plus maternity leave stipulated across the country is about 128-190 days, and most provinces and cities are 158 days; male paternity leave is generally 7-30 days, and most provinces are 15 days.
Jiang Shengnan also submitted the "Suggestions on Improving the Regulations on Maternity Leave, Paternity Leave and Parental Leave" at the National Two Sessions this year.
She believes that parenting is the responsibility of both husband and wife. The current maternity leave essentially defaults that most of the responsibility for taking care of the newborn is borne by the mother. In order to give men more time to take care of the mother and the newborn, it is recommended to increase the paid paternity leave for men to 30-42 days, the puerperium of women is 42 days, which is the period when the husband needs the care very much.
"It is necessary to improve a series of maternity-related leave, because simply extending maternity leave across the board will cause employment discrimination against women of childbearing age." Jiang Shengnan explained that the current maternity and paternity leave regulations mainly focus on increasing women's leave, which This aggravates the adverse impact of fertility on women's employment, and further reduces the willingness of working women to bear children.
Once the company has expectations of "women having three children", it may reduce or not recruit female employees, so as to avoid continuous maternity leave for female employees in the future, and the company will have to bear the cost of job loss and business interruption.
This is very unfavorable for women's career development and living environment.
She believes that the length of maternity leave should be scaled, and women should not be allowed to choose between survival and childbirth.
Xie Wenmin, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director of Hubei Shouyi Law Firm, holds the same view.
He believes that the extension of maternity leave is the first thing that moves the company's "cheese", and employers have to consider labor costs.
Large enterprises may also be able to dilute and absorb costs by themselves, while small and medium-sized enterprises are obviously weaker in this regard.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are the majority of Chinese enterprises, and the labor cost of female employees' maternity leave is not a small problem for these enterprises.
Jiang Shengnan put forward a series of suggestions for improving maternity leave: comprehensively considering the affordability of social security funds, the work nature and strength differences of different enterprises and institutions, and the different demands of individual professional women for maternity, maternity leave is divided into mandatory maternity leave and flexible maternity leave. part.
In addition to guaranteeing the statutory maternity leave stipulated by the state, enterprises and institutions may formulate flexible maternity leave policies according to the actual situation.
For example, how many days are added to the statutory maternity leave, and whether wages are paid during maternity leave.
In this way, enterprises and institutions can use maternity leave as a benefit and do what they can; employees can also expect maternity leave when choosing a career.
Another way is to take maternity leave for both men and women, increase paid paternity leave for men, and give men more time to take care of mothers and newborns, which will help increase men's participation in parenting activities.
Xie Wenmin believes that there is no need to stipulate the same period of maternity leave for men and women.
Taking into account the practical feasibility, it is advisable to proceed gradually, or to give families the flexibility to choose.
Lin Yong proposed to give birth tax incentives and social security subsidies to mothers with multiple children, and to speed up the construction of a reasonable and effective sharing mechanism of birth costs among the state, enterprises and families.
With reference to the tax incentives and social security subsidy policies for the re-employment of laid-off and unemployed people and the initial employment of fresh graduates, relevant preferential policies to promote the employment of mothers with multiple children are introduced, and small, medium and micro enterprises are encouraged to absorb the employment of mothers with multiple children.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Wang Yijun Jiao Minlong Source: China Youth Daily