As male participation in parenting has not kept up with female participation in the workforce, the government should amend parental leave regulations, advocacy groups said on Tuesday.
The groups — including the Childcare Policy Alliance, the Birth Empowerment Alliance of Taiwan and the Awakening Foundation — cited studies showing that fewer men take parental leave, saying that this discourages women from having children. Legislation requiring employers to pay men on paternal leave 90 percent of their regular wages could curb this trend, they added. Other studies seem to back up the groups’ claims.
A study by Boston College’s Center for Work and Family found that men with an annual salary of US$100,000 or more were reluctant to take parental leave, but nearly all admitted that they would if they received full pay, a Feb. 19 article in the New York Times said.
California introduced legislation stipulating that employees on parental leave must receive 60 to 70 percent of their regular wages for up to six weeks, but the new law only induced a small increase in the number of men taking leave, the Times reported.
Men are most likely to take parental leave when they receive 70 percent or more of their salary, the article quoted researcher Brad Harrington as saying. At 90 percent of their salary, all of the men in his study would take parental leave, Harrington said, adding that men are concerned about earning enough to support their families, particularly while their wives are on leave to recover from giving birth.
Wages in Taiwan are low and while employers ease the pain of this with annual bonuses, men requesting parental leave might worry that their bonus could be affected, particularly when many Taiwanese are expected to work unpaid overtime and employees generally only leave the office after their bosses do.
There is still a gender gap in salaries, with a study released in March 2018 by the Ministry of Labor showing that women at the time earned 14 percent less than men.
The pay gap is significant enough that a male wage earner would need to continue receiving most of his regular salary if a couple expected to maintain their standard of living while he takes parental leave.
With the birthrate in Taiwan at record lows, the government knows that current parental leave regulations are a hurdle to promoting childbirth. In 2009, the Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法) was amended to allow those receiving unpaid parental leave from their employer in the first six months after a child’s birth to apply to the government for 60 percent of their wages.
On Dec. 4 last year, the Act of Assignment for Officers and Non-commissioned Officers of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍軍官士官任職條) was amended to allow those who have served in the military for at least six months to apply for parental leave.
However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wan Mei-ling (萬美玲) in March said that parental leave regulations in the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) have not been revised for 36 years and fall below international standards.
Parental leave is crucial for both parents. The government should ensure that both can be with a newborn, to bond with the child and share in the parenting workload — while not being unduly affected financially. It is in the government’s interest to address this issue, which has such a direct impact on increasing the nation’s birthrate.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to bully Taiwan by conducting military drills extremely close to Taiwan in late May 2024 and announcing a legal opinion in June on how they would treat “Taiwan Independence diehards” according to the PRC’s Criminal Code. This article will describe how China’s Anaconda Strategy of psychological and legal asphyxiation is employed. The CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) conducted a “punishment military exercise” against Taiwan called “Joint Sword 2024A” from 23-24 May 2024, just three days after President William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was sworn in and
Former US president Donald Trump’s comments that Taiwan hollowed out the US semiconductor industry are incorrect. That misunderstanding could impact the future of one of the world’s most important relationships and end up aiding China at a time it is working hard to push its own tech sector to catch up. “Taiwan took our chip business from us,” the returnee US presidential contender told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview published this week. The remarks came after the Republican nominee was asked whether he would defend Taiwan against China. It is not the first time he has said this about the nation’s
In a recent interview with the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called President William Lai (賴清德) “naive.” As always with Ma, one must first deconstruct what he is saying to fully understand the parallel universe he insists on defending. Who is being “naive,” Lai or Ma? The quickest way is to confront Ma with a series of pointed questions that force him to take clear stands on the complex issues involved and prevent him from his usual ramblings. Regarding China and Taiwan, the media should first begin with questions like these: “Did the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
The Yomiuri Shimbun, the newspaper with the largest daily circulation in Japan, on Thursday last week published an article saying that an unidentified high-ranking Japanese official openly spoke of an analysis that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) needs less than a week, not a month, to invade Taiwan with its amphibious forces. Reportedly, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has already been advised of the analysis, which was based on the PLA’s military exercises last summer. A Yomiuri analysis of unclassified satellite photographs confirmed that the PLA has already begun necessary base repairs and maintenance, and is conducting amphibious operation exercises