coincides with Women's Day, which is just right to talk about the issue of equal rights in women's career development.
In traditional agricultural society, because men have the advantage in physical strength, women's employment rights and social status are far inferior to those of men. However, with the continuous development of society, especially after entering the post-industrial era, male physical advantages are often no longer helpful in work except that they are still valuable in a few areas such as sports competition. In terms of intelligence and emotional intelligence, women are not weaker than men. Therefore, in theory, women can have complete equal rights in career development.
In fact, since industrialization, women's status and career development have indeed been comprehensively improved. According to World Bank data, worldwide, the average employment rate for women aged 15-64 in 2019 was 52.6%, the employment rate for women in China was 68.57%, and the employment rate for Sweden in Nordic country was 81.25%.
Of course, the current situation is still a certain distance from the real equality. Although various gender discrimination has been completely prohibited by law, there are still some customs in concept, such as women being considered to be responsible for more housework, etc., which will still bring about differences based on gender factors. In addition, women often bear most of the raising costs during parenting, which may also lead to a disadvantage in terms of income. For example, from the data on the gap between the median full-time job income of men and women in 2018: EU averaged 11%, and 22% in China. Many studies have shown that the income gap between men and women is mainly due to men having better career development in senior positions. Generally speaking, among business executives, top scientists and politicians, the proportion of women is far below 50%. Therefore, even though Chinese women are no longer the same as before in terms of professional equality, there is still a gap compared to men. Many people believe that this is because women need to give more for their children, so they will be at a disadvantage in career development. For women in the workplace, career development is interrupted by having one child for at least half a year to one year. If you have two or three children, the impact will be as high as two or three years or even more. These two or three years are often the golden stage of your career, and the final result is that the mother's career development will be greatly affected by childbirth.
On the other hand, China's fertility rate continues to decline. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, China's birth population hit a new low since 1949 in 2021, with only 10.62 million people, and the population birth rate was 7.52‰, the lowest level on record. Based on this data, China's total fertility rate in 2021 was only 1.15, which is not only lower than almost all countries in the world, but is much lower than Japan, which has severely fewer births and aging. The average Chinese people's willingness to give birth (ideal number of children) is also almost the lowest in the world. According to data from OECD , the average number of ideal children in most countries exceeds 2, and the results of multiple birth intention surveys show that the average number of ideal children of Chinese people is less than 2. According to the specific analysis of Yuwa population research "China Nursing Cost Report 2022 Edition", one of the most important factors that cause China's low fertility rate and affect the willingness of families of childbearing age is the high cost of fertility. In addition to direct costs such as housing and education, there is also the opportunity cost of career development. This issue is particularly important for working mothers, after all, the cost of giving birth and taking care of children is mainly borne by women. Therefore, how to create a friendly social environment and help women balance their family and career development is a particularly meaningful public policy issue.
The social status of women is not contradictory to having children
Some people say that having children will affect women's social status and career development. Is this really the case? In fact, the two are not necessarily contradictory. According to international data, although in many low-income countries and Muslim countries, the status of women and the rate of participation in women in working at relatively high fertility rates are relatively low; however, in developed countries with high welfare such as Nordics, the social status of women and the proportion of participation in work is very high, and the fertility rate is also very high.For example, Sweden is one of the most successful countries recognized in the world today in ensuring gender equality. Sweden's new Succession Act grants royal women the same rights of inheritance, thus becoming the first monarchy to announce the inheritance of the throne, regardless of gender, the eldest son (daughter). In the Swedish parliament, the proportion of female members in 2021 accounted for 47%, and the labor participation rate of women aged 15-64 is as high as 81%. In recent years, Sweden's fertility rate has reached 1.9, making it one of the countries with the highest fertility rate among developed countries. Let’s look at Iceland , and the proportion of women participating in work exceeds 70%. Thanks to the generous parenting benefits, Iceland is also one of the countries with the highest fertility rates in Europe, with a fertility rate of up to 2.0. It can be seen that women's career development, social status and fertility rate are not contradictory. When fertility benefits are very good, women's status and fertility rate can be improved simultaneously.
So we put forward the following public policy recommendations to reduce parenting costs and help women achieve a win-win situation in their families and careers.
1. Adding nurseries and expanding child care services
Currently in China, there is a serious lack of child care services under 3 years old. At present, there are nearly 50 million infants and young children under the age of 3 in my country, and there are few social institutions that can provide infant care services. The enrollment rate of infants and young children under the age of 3 in various childcare institutions across the country is only 4.1%. According to OECD Family Database, the average enrollment rate of children under 3 years old (excluding) in developed countries is 35%, far exceeding that of China. The enrollment rate of children under the age of 3 in 11 countries exceeded 50%, among which the highest was Luxembourg , 63.3%, Iceland reached 59.7%, and the Netherlands , France, Norway, South Korea, Belgium , etc. exceeded 55%.
From the above figure, China's enrollment rate is less than 5%, much lower than that of other countries. If you cannot find a nursery, there are only two options for dual-working parents: one is to hire a nanny for a long time, and the other is to help with care by the elderly. But now many elderly people are facing a delay in retirement and are not willing to take care of their children, especially those with two or three children, and nannies are becoming more and more expensive. So the remaining option is to temporarily interrupt one of the people. Often, it is often the mother of the child who makes sacrifices, which can have a very serious impact on the career of a woman. We recommend building a large number of nurseries, and the government will bear most of the operating expenses, increasing the enrollment rate of children aged 0-3 to about 50%. It is also possible to consider introducing foreign nannies from Southeast Asia and other places to further reduce parenting costs.
2. Provide equal maternity leave for men and women. The government bears the labor cost during maternity leave
According to my country's " Special Regulations on Labor Protection for Female Employees", female employees enjoy 98 days of maternity leave for childbirth, of which 15 days of leave can be taken before childbirth. Recently, some provinces have extended maternity leave. We recommend that the government bear part of the costs caused by maternity leave by increasing childcare subsidies. Otherwise, it will lead to companies being unwilling to recruit women of childbearing age, resulting in invisible employment discrimination.
In addition, if only women's maternity leave is extended, it is easy for companies to be unwilling to recruit women, thereby aggravating the gender discrimination that women suffer in the employment market. To this end, we recommend introducing a relatively equal maternity leave policy for men and women. Judging from international experience, many high welfare countries have relatively long parental leave for men and women. For example, Sweden’s birth policy encourages both couples to participate in parenting. Currently, Swedish parents can receive 480 days of paid parental leave together, of which both parents enjoy 90 days of parental leave that cannot be transferred to each other. This is mainly to ensure fairness and shared parenting responsibilities with parents. At the same time, male employees should be encouraged to take maternity leave (some countries even force men to take maternity leave), so that men can bear the responsibilities and obligations of raising and accompanying their children together and even more. In recent years, Sweden's fertility rate has been around 1.8, second only to France among European countries. Experience in Europe and other countries shows that integrating the concept of gender equality in family roles into the parental leave system and stipulating the father's family responsibilities through laws can not only promote equal opportunities in the workplace of men and women and share responsibilities in housework, but also help eliminate gender discrimination in the employment market.
3. Promote flexible office model
We advocate that enterprises allow employees to flexibly arrange their working hours and places, especially pregnant women and breastfeeding women can work from home. High-tech companies in China, represented by , Ctrip, , are actively trying a hybrid office model and achieving good results. Not only did the work efficiency not decline, but the employee satisfaction of has also been greatly improved. At the same time, the social effect is also obvious, which not only reduces commuting congestion, but also helps environmental protection, family harmony and alleviates high housing prices.
Most importantly, this measure is particularly popular with female employees who have just given birth to children, and can allow professional women to gain greater benefits. On the one hand, through the hybrid office model, they can work from home for 2 days, saving several hours of commuting time a week, so they can have more time to spend with their children, helping them relieve the originally heavy parenting pressure. On the other hand, male employees can also have more time to accompany their children and share housework, which can greatly alleviate the anxiety of professional women, reduce the pressure and conflicts of career development and parenting, and improve the willingness of women of childbearing age to have children. We also hope that more companies will join the ranks of promoting flexible office models in the future.
4. Open assisted reproductive technology, including single women, can also freeze eggs
Modern working women should take into account their career and family, and conflicts often occur in energy and time. For many careers today, undergraduate or even master’s degree is the lowest educational configuration. In this context, a young woman must be 24-25 years old to complete her undergraduate and master's degree studies and enters the society to work. If she only considered getting married after work and was not so lucky to have an unsuccessful love experience, then by the time she actually got married, she might be over thirty years old. However, the best age for women to have children is before the age of 35. For women who have not found a suitable partner at the age of 35, without technical help, they may lose the opportunity to raise children for life. To solve this problem, we need to rely on the power of technology. The biggest benefit of egg freezing and other assisted reproductive technologies is to extend the fertility window for these women and help them fulfill their desire to be mothers.
The "Guidelines for Human Assisted Reproduction" (Human Assisted Reproduction No. 176) issued by the former Ministry of Health stipulates: "It is prohibited to implement human Assisted Reproduction Technology for couples and single women who do not comply with the national population and family planning regulations and Regulations." In actual operation, single women cannot use sperm banks, egg freezing and other artificial Assisted Reproduction-related technical methods such as reproduction. This regulation can actually be attributed to the past policies that restrict births, but now China's birth policy has shifted from restricting births to encouraging births, and the previous regulations should also be adjusted accordingly. Nowadays, some single women are willing to use their money and time to try to have children, which is actually conducive to improving the fertility rate. There is no reason to ban these good things that benefit the country and the people.
5. Education reform, shortening the academic system
Now companies are recruiting more and more master's students, resulting in increasingly fierce competition for postgraduate entrance examinations. For Chinese students, they need to face three stressful exams: the middle school entrance examination, the college entrance examination and the postgraduate entrance examination from adolescence, and each exam has caused a huge waste of time. The reason why these exams existed in the past was that high school education and university education were in short supply, and now, the educational resources of high schools and even universities are already oversupply overall. We should popularize high school and undergraduate education, and at the same time, we can cancel the high school entrance examination and downplay the college entrance examination, and use the college student graduation examination (similar to the postgraduate entrance examination) as the main basis for screening outstanding talents. This will save time for reviewing the middle school entrance examination and college entrance examination in the middle school stage. In the 12 years of basic education that Chinese students have experienced now, at least two years have been wasted on coping with the college entrance examination and the middle school entrance examination. We recommend shortening primary and secondary schools from 12 years to 10 years to completely solve the problem of intra-examination in education.
Shortening the school system is especially beneficial for girls, because girls are more mature than boys and can graduate and work early.If a girl can graduate from university at the age of 20 and graduate from a master's degree at the age of 22 and enter society two or three years in advance, she will have more time to fall in love, get married, and have children, and can better balance the development of her family and career.
Conclusion
As the status and independence of women have greatly improved, human beings have bid farewell to the "patriarchal society". This is a huge improvement, but it may also cause a rapid decline in marriage and fertility rates. However, from an international perspective, improving the fertility rate and the status of women are not contradictory. Nordic countries can achieve the synchronous improvement of women's status and social welfare, and have also successfully avoided the trap of low fertility rate, which is worth learning from. A fertility-friendly society must also be a female-friendly society. We believe that women should be effectively guaranteed for full career development from the aspects of building nurseries, promoting mixed offices, providing equal maternity leave for men and women, and opening assisted reproductive technology, and helping women who are willing to give birth to achieve a win-win situation in their families and careers.
#Why do young people not want to have babies#
#all come to see the two sessions#
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