More than 3 years ago, a "mother's post" recruitment allowed Li Fang to return to the workplace after 90. For this work of data labeling for financial news, Li Fang is most satisfied that her time can be arranged flexibly, "not only can you accompany your children on weekends, but it is also convenient to take leave on weekdays."
In addition to Qingjian County, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, where Li Fang is located, the "mother's post" to relieve her mother's worries has appeared in many places in China. In mid-April this year, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security implemented the "mother's post" employment model and solicited opinions from the public. According to the draft for comments, the "mother's post" is mainly used to absorb women under the legal working age who have the obligation to support children under the age of 4, and is an employment position with relatively flexible working hours and management mode. The first meeting of the 12th Central Finance and Economic Commission held not long ago proposed to support Chinese-style modernization with high-quality population development, and took "establishing and improving the fertility support policy system" and "reducing the burden of family reproduction, parenting and education" as key topics.
"The exploration experience of 'Mom's Gang' can provide an operational path for couples of childbearing age, especially women, to balance their careers and children." Zhang Lei, deputy director of the Population Research Institute of Peking University, said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China Youth Daily that the establishment of a "mother post" should achieve a "win-win" between individuals and employers, in order to achieve the output of sustainable benefits. She believes that fertility support policies aimed at reducing the burden of childbirth, parenting and education need to fully empower couples and their families who wish to have children, and "need to build a complete and mutually supportive policy support framework from a life-cycle perspective."
Li Fang noted that as early as July last year, some policies and measures had been tilted towards the "mother's post", including employment support, tax exemptions, and protection of the rights and interests of both employers and employers. This spring, a netizen shared his experience of participating in the "Mom's Post" on-site job fair on social platforms. "There are jobs in factories, hotels, restaurants, and the working hours from 7 a.m. to 8:4 p.m. are very appropriate," she said. ”
"At present, the 'mother's post' is set up for women, which has the advantages of low job threshold, flexible working hours, and promoting women's 'vocational education balance'." In Zhang Lei's view, exploring "mother's posts" in many places in China has great practical significance for establishing a mechanism for sharing the cost of childbirth. However, at present, the job setting of "mother's post" tends to be basic positions in manufacturing and service related fields, such as general workers, delivery workers, salesmen, etc., and has not yet covered women with strong professional skills and management positions. The above-mentioned draft also mentions that employers are encouraged to allocate some professional technical and management positions for the establishment of "mother's posts".
Zhang Lei added that some of the current "mother's posts" will naturally shield fathers from those responsible for childcare, "[this] accelerates the depreciation of human capital for higher-quality women, etc." She suggested increasing the value recognition of men and women sharing childcare responsibilities, changing the "mother's post" to "parent-child post", and giving equal employment support to men who cooperate in childcare.
Zhang Lei said that "parent-child posts" should be promoted after enterprises that can plan production capacity in advance and implement a variety of salary forms to form a stable model of matching supply and demand and maximizing value creation, so as to reduce the waste of resources as much as possible and maximize the input and output benefits of government finance and employers.
In fact, as part of the birth support policy, the implementation of the "parent-child post" model needs to be combined with public service models such as inclusive childcare services. In Zhang Lei's view, fertility support policies are not only policies for individual women, but also family policies for the development of the whole life cycle of all family members, and social policies that involve reducing poverty, improving children's well-being, promoting employment and promoting gender equality.
Zhang Lei explained that from the individual level, the life cycle of parent-child two generations overlaps as the stage of childbirth, parenting and education, so the birth support policy aimed at reducing the burden of childbirth, parenting and education needs to fully empower couples and their families who wish to have children. "It is necessary to ensure the healthy development and growth of infants and young children, reduce the economic pressure faced by couples of childbearing age, alleviate the contradiction of vocational and child-rearing balance, and also need to support the elderly population who provide intergenerational care services."
Many difficulties are distributed in the whole life cycle covering employment, marriage, childbirth, childcare, education and pension. Li Fang, who has experienced the "lack of skill" she experienced when raising her two children, said that the lack of suitable childcare services has hindered her return to the workplace to some extent.
"The difficulty in universal childcare services for young children aged 6 months to 3 years lies in the acceptability, accessibility and affordability of childcare services; For maternity and paternity leave for pregnant women and couples within one year after giving birth, the difficulty lies in the standardization and flexibility of the maternity leave system, and avoiding risks such as difficulties in returning to the workplace caused by excessive maternity leave. Zhang Lei also mentioned that the difficulty in reducing the parenting costs required by families to meet the safety and high-quality growth of infants and adolescents lies in market supervision and scientific regulation, and the difficulty in reducing education costs lies in the construction of a layered on-demand education system and the affordability of education investment.
In Zhang Lei's view, to accelerate the construction of a childbirth-friendly society, we must make efforts to ensure the sustainability of the labor force. This requires not only promoting the adjustment and implementation of policies such as maternity allowance and childcare leave in accordance with local conditions, strengthening the construction of childcare institutions, but also promoting the nature of maternity security to shift to universal security based on family birth activities, "reducing the economic burden of child-rearing families and enhancing the enthusiasm of enterprises to implement the maternity security system".
China Youth Daily / China Youth Network reporter Zhu Caiyun Source: China Youth Daily