Shanghai Women’s Federation Suggestions: Raise the Subsidy for Fertility Medical Expenses in Moderation and Explore the Establishment of Fertility Subsidy System
On the afternoon of January 9th, the Shanghai Women’s Federation held a press conference. Chen Jianjun, Vice President and spokesperson of the Women’s Federation, introduced that based on listening to the opinions and suggestions of female representatives from the Municipal People’s Congress and CPPCC women committee members as well as women from different walks of life, the Women’s Federation plans to submit proposals to the Municipal People’s Congress and CPPCC with a focus on female employment, women’s rights protection, child-friendly, fertility-friendly aspects starting from strengthening top-level design and improving people’s livelihood.
Shanghai’s young women generally possess high levels of education and have higher expectations and demands for career development. While pursuing their career dreams and striving hard for the city, they also face dual challenges of fertility and career development. In the “Proposal on Actively Building a Fertility-Friendly Society to Relieve the Dual Pressure of Employment and Fertility among Young Women”, the Shanghai Women’s Federation proposed three suggestions:
Firstly, create a fertility-friendly environment to reduce the pressure on young women to bear children. Implement fertility support policies, protect the special labor rights of female employees, and strengthen supervision over maternity leave. Reduce the cost of “three aspects” of fertility, nurture, and education, include necessary testing items into basic health care services for fertility, appropriately increase subsidies for fertility medical expenses, and explore the establishment of a fertility subsidy system. Strengthen social support services, increase inclusive childcare services, establish a home-based support system for home economics, and expand the supply of home-based childcare services.
Secondly, improve employment opportunities and quality to alleviate the pressure on young women’s employment. Promote “fertility-friendly positions” and encourage employers to adopt flexible work patterns that are conducive to balancing work and family life. Develop new careers suitable for women’s flexible employment, tap the potential of community public welfare jobs, and relax age limits for women’s social worker recruitment. Establish a reasonable cost-sharing mechanism, and for employers who meet certain conditions, their social insurance contributions during maternity leave and childbirth leave can be applied for subsidies at a ratio of 50%.
Thirdly, enhance employment capacity and security to alleviate pressure on young women’s development. Improve women’s employment ability, increase pre-job employment ability reserves, and provide post-partum retraining for women who have returned to work after childbirth. Strengthen the protection of women’s employment rights and provide more flexible and convenient ways of participating in maternity insurance for flexible employees. Extend the golden age of women’s career development, advocate employers to reasonably set the proportion of men and women in management positions, and appropriately relax age limits for women who meet certain conditions in promotion, award评选s, project applications, as well as more high-level talent development plans.
In the “Proposal on Optimizing Market Information Service for Women’s Flexible Employment”, the Shanghai Women’s Federation suggested improving the efficiency of community women’s flexible employment services. Tap community flexible employment service resources, especially within a “15-minute community life circle”, prioritize the construction of “家门口”灵活就业服务站; promote cooperation between enterprises and communities to develop social enterprise projects targeted at women; encourage community public welfare jobs to favor women; and build a community career development platform to provide real-time employment information, job matching, and entrepreneurial support for female workers.
In addition, in the “Proposal on Establishing a Fertility Cost Sharing Mechanism to Reduce Enterprise Burden”, the Shanghai Women’s Federation proposed implementing various tax preferential policies for enterprises. Following the practice of tax deductions for salaries with added deductions for disabled workers’ salaries, implement tax deductions for enterprises that bear fertility costs. For enterprises that employ more than a certain proportion of female employees, tax relief such as tax reductions, direct deductions or tax refunds can be provided through certain tax preferential policies which should be appropriately tilted towards small and micro-enterprises.
