Author: Lin Xiaozhao
Since the implementation of the three-child policy, birth support policies have been issued intensively in many places.
Among them, parental leave has been introduced in various places. What is the cost of parental leave?
According to the news released by the Chinese Population Society, recently, the sub-forum "Gender Equality and Population Development in the New Era" of the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Chinese Population Society was held online.
At the sub-forum, Yang Hui, deputy director of the Policy and Regulation Research Office of the Women's Research Institute of the All-China Women's Federation, focused on the two direct costs of participating in employee social insurance and vacation wages, and calculated the cost of parental leave. The company of each couple that meets the conditions for parental leave needs to bear the direct cost of parental leave of 17,200 yuan for each child.
Since last year, population and family planning regulations have been revised in various places.
Judging from the amendments that have been announced so far, maternity leave and parental leave are generally extended in various places.
According to the China Population Daily, Yang Wenzhuang, director of the Department of Population Monitoring and Family Development of the National Health Commission, recently introduced that localities have further improved the maternity leave system. Establish parental leave ranging from 5 to 20 days, and add provisions related to reducing the cost of childbirth, parenting, and education.
Among them, in terms of the source of payment for the cost of parental leave, according to Yang Hui's statistics on 27 provinces that have issued parental leave regulations as of the end of April this year, 21 provinces have stipulated that "parental leave is regarded as attendance" and "wages are paid during vacation". It is paid by the employer. The four provinces have not specified the source of parental leave payment, and Guangdong and Hubei have stipulated the establishment of a holiday labor cost sharing mechanism.
According to the basic pension insurance, medical insurance, maternity insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance payment ratio and the full-caliber monthly average salary of employees undertaken by the employers in each province, Yang Hui calculated the direct labor cost brought by parental leave and found that the company provided each child for each child. Bear the direct cost of parental leave of 17,200 yuan, of which the average cost of social insurance payment is 3,400 yuan, and the average salary during parental leave is 13,800 yuan.
Yang Hui analyzed that parental leave comes at a price, with social security costs accounting for 20% and wage costs accounting for 80%.
On average, the enterprise bears the cost of parental leave of more than 10,000 yuan for each pair of employees with a child under the age of 3 (6 years old), which is enough to reduce their enthusiasm for implementing the parental leave policy.
In fact, not only parental leave, but extended maternity leave also means more costs for businesses.
Prof. Dong Yuzheng, a population expert and director of the Guangdong Population Development Research Institute, analyzed Yicai.com. There are already a number of projects related to the maternity leave system. However, the cost-sharing mechanism for vacation labor has not been well established. If the burden is heavier, the enthusiasm for recruiting female employees will decrease, but it will affect the employment and career development of female employees.
Last year, in the draft of the "Regulations on Population and Family Planning in Hunan Province (Draft Amendment)", it was also mentioned in the column "Basis and Reasons for Amendments": Long holidays may affect women's employment, which is not conducive to maintenance in the long run. and development of women's rights.
Therefore, it is crucial to establish more cost-sharing mechanisms for childbirth and to strengthen public services and guarantees.
Dong Yuzheng believes that it is possible to explore and implement other related methods and measures such as tax reduction and exemption, performance incentives, etc., and take multiple measures to make a combination of punches to effectively reduce the burden of employers' holiday labor costs.
Only by adopting a multi-pronged approach and forming a social mechanism for sharing the cost of parenting can we better promote the willingness of enterprises to recruit women, boldly cultivate and use women, and eliminate employment discrimination.
In this regard, some places are already exploring.
For example, Jiangsu proposed to improve the labor cost sharing mechanism.
Explore a reasonable sharing mechanism for labor costs during maternity leave.
For the social insurance fees paid by the enterprise during the maternity leave of female employees, 50% of the subsidy will be given to those who give birth to the second child, and 80% of the subsidy will be given to those who give birth to the third child.
Shangyu District, Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province recently proposed to improve the holiday labor cost sharing mechanism and provide certain subsidies to the social insurance expenses paid by enterprises during the maternity leave of female employees. On the basis of provincial policy support, strive to make breakthroughs in subsidies. .
In terms of parental leave, Yang Hui believes that how to implement parental leave without excessively increasing the labor cost of the employer is inseparable from the holiday labor cost sharing mechanism.
She proposed to expand the scope of maternity insurance payment and maternity allowance payment, enterprises and finance should jointly bear social insurance premiums during parental leave, and the tax department should provide appropriate tax reductions for enterprises that take parental leave.