Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Matt Chang/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
NEW POLICIES for mandatory parental leave after childbirth have been criticized. Namely, the new policies extend mandatory maternity leave for women to 12 weeks, from the current eight weeks. However, they do not extend paternity leave. Such policies would be enacted through changes to the Labor Standards Act.
Civil society groups representing a number of perspectives, such as the feminist organization Awakening Foundation, Taiwan Labor Front, and others, as organized through the Childcare Policy Alliance, were critical of the policy because of its failure to incorporate fathers into childcare. Instead, the perspective taken seems to be that women are primarily responsible for childcare.
In particular, the members of the Childcare Policy Alliance cited that current gendered policies lead to discrimination against women, due to the requirement that they take time off after childbirth. According to an online survey that the Childcare Policy Alliance conducted, out of 504 respondents, 66.5% believed that such policies resulted in discrimination against women in the workplace. Likewise, as employers have to pay women’s salaries during paternity leave, this further contributes to the unwillingness of employers to hire women.
Currently, women receive seven days of prenatal check-up leave and 56 mandatory days of maternity leave. By contrast, men receive no days of paternity leave and have five days of leave to accompany their partners to prenatal check-ups. Instead, the groups called for four weeks of mandatory leave, to be taken within the first three months of childbirth, and flexible leave periods in addition to mandatory leave. Likewise, the Childcare Policy Alliance called for the government to share in some of the costs of leave after childbirth, so that employers are not discouraged from hiring women because of having to shoulder such costs.
Likewise, on a similar issue, new legislation from the Executive Yuan, which is to be submitted to the legislature before the end of the year, would extend parental leave from six to seven months. This would apply to private and public sector workers, as well as members of the military, through amending the Employment Insurance Act, the Civil Servants and Educators’ Insurance Act, and the Act of Insurance for Military Personnel, with funding from the Employment Insurance Fund.
Some considerations are also to adjust that leave is counted in terms of months to days. Those who do not take a full month off are still counted for a month of leave. Consequently, there has been discussion of new forms of leave.
93,587 were eligible for parental leave last year, with the original funding for the program as well as subsidies allowing parents to receive 80% of their salary. More than 30,000 applied for parental leave last year, which is a 54% increase from 2022, in which parental leave now allows for closer to the original salaries of parents. Yet it is also the case that, as pointed out by the Childcare Policy Alliance, there is a gendered aspect to which parents take parental leave, and there is a lack of men taking parental leave. Still, statistics show that between 2022 and last year, 27% more men took parental leave.
Childcare policy proves a charged issue in Taiwan at a time when Taiwan is on the precipice of becoming a “Super-Aged” society, in which more than 20% of the population is 65 years old or older. Furthermore, Taiwan has among the world’s lowest fertility rates.
Among the key factors contributing to Taiwan’s low birthrate is that young people are unable to afford to have and raise children. This is unsurprising, given the low salaries and long work hours that characterize working society in Taiwan today, with Taiwan regularly among the top countries with the longest working hours in the world. However, another factor is the gendered expectations of women, both from their partners and their families.
Though both the DPP and KMT agree that Taiwan’s declining birthrate is an issue, most proposals have simply been to increase subsidies available to parents. It is also probable that larger structural changes, such as requiring employers to pay for leave after childbirth, would meet greater pushback. And this also does not address the larger cultural factors at play.