Legislation needed on maternity insurance: Chinese trade union official

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 18, 2003

Legislation needed on maternity insurance: Chinese trade union official

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China's legislative department should speed up the creation of laws on maternity insurance in order to give women equal opportunities in employment, said a senior Chinese trade union official recently.

Chinese woman workers' rights are not well protected during their pregnancy and post-pregnancy period as China's immature maternity insurance mechanism is undergoing reform, said Ni Haomei, vice chair of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) and director of the organization's National Committee for Chinese Woman Workers.

China's maternity insurance system, established in the 1950s, regulates that all the wages and medical costs of woman workers during the pregnancy and breast-feeding period should be paid by their employers, which means that enterprises with a higher percentage of woman workers bear heavier burdens. As China is developing from a planned to a market economy, the maternity expenses may directly affect the enterprises' profit and women's employment.

To meet the needs of China's economic reform and protect women's labor rights, the ACFTU suggested a reform of the maternity insurance system by establishing an insurance fund.

According to the ACFTU, woman workers' maternity expenses, including salary and medical costs, should be paid by an insurance fund collected through social pools, which means the enterprises only pay the insurance premium and the women workers get their expenses paid from the fund.

In 1988, some regions in China started to reform the maternity insurance system. China's former Ministry of Labor issued a trial regulation in 1994, saying that all the related medical costs and maternity allowances should be paid by an insurance fund.

By the end of 2002, 14 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had set up local laws or regulations on maternity insurance. About 34.88 million woman workers have benefited from it, or only 33 percent of China's total number of woman workers.

"The maternity insurance reform is going very slowly and it is hard for the concerned woman workers to get the pay they should," said Ni Haomei.

A survey by China Women and Children Rights Protection Group in October 2002 showed that 40.1 percent of Chinese women workers have no special protection during pregnancy and the figure is 25.6percent for women during the breast-feeding period.

"The lack of a corresponding law is the major reason that affects maternity insurance development," said Ni.

The booming private sector sees a low percentage of maternity insurance participation and some enterprises are even incapable of participating as their business drops sharply.

The present regulation, which is still in a trial period, could not include all the woman workers into the insurance system and it has no effective measures to ensure the implementation of the regulation.

Ni suggested concerned departments organize an investigation group to study the implementation of maternity insurance and create laws on this issue as soon as possible.

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