The government should institute a week of prenatal leave in proposed amendments to the Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法), Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) said on Thursday.
Fan made the remark at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei a day after competing bills resulted in legislative gridlock, prompting Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃) to conduct negotiations with the Cabinet and lawmakers.
The structure of paid leave for pregnancy checkups is not enough to meet the child-rearing needs of Taiwanese families, an issue that family rights advocates have long protested against, Fan said.
Photo courtesy of Fan Yun’s office
While the government increased paid pregnancy checkup leave from five days to seven and extended National Health Insurance coverage from 10 checkups to 14, the changes put the burden of childrearing exclusively on women, she said.
Instead, the spouses of pregnant employees should be entitled to seven days of paid leave to allow couples to go to checkups together and covers other aspects of prenatal care that are not strictly medical, she said.
People need time to prepare for a birth, educate themselves about childcare and emotionally support each other, she said.
The proposed measure would cost NT$400 million (US$14.42 million), or less than 0.4 percent of the government’s budget for policies addressing the nation’s aging population, she said.
The government already considers childrearing an issue that concerns the public interest, so using state funding for prenatal family leave should not pose any legislative hurdles, Fan said.
Birth Reform Alliance chairwoman Chen Shu-ting (諶淑婷), who is pregnant with a second child, said she has to find a babysitter when she gets a pregnancy checkup, because her husband cannot get time off work.
Modern men are willing to take part in childrearing, but they are excluded from the process by work structure and labor laws, Chen said.
The alliance and similar groups are promoting prenatal leave because giving birth requires more than medical checkups, she added.
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