A question many women face in job interviews in China is: Are you married or planning to have children? For many women, their decision on childbirth now begins at the job interview. Although there are many laws protecting women, like the Women’s Protection Law, almost one-third of women in China reported experiencing recruitment discrimination.[1] This tension has increased as China implemented pro-natal policies, including extended maternity leave. While these reforms were intended to encourage childbirth and support women, they have unintentionally intensified employment discrimination as firms avoid hiring women to reduce costs of maternity leave. As a result, policies designed to provide meaningful support led to mixed outcomes, creating new obstacles for women in the labour market. To understand how these hiring processes have emerged, it is necessary to explore China’s evolving population policies.
Over the last few decades, China’s population policies have shifted dramatically, shaping demographic patterns and social structures. In 1979, China implemented a one-child policy to control the accelerated population growth, which decreased the national fertility rate over time. Although it helped control the population in the short run, the policy produced significant long-term demographic consequences, such as labour shortages and an aging population. To address these issues, the Chinese government enacted a two-child policy to encourage childbirth in 2016.[2] The two-child policy was complemented by policies such as an increased maternity leave period, from the national 98-day period to a provincial average of 161 days.[3]
While policies that supported maternity leave were intended to help women and promote childbirth, their effects on labour market outcomes were more nuanced. On one hand, maternity leave allows women to give birth without resigning, which can reduce turnover and support long-term career continuity. Since replacing experienced workers is costly, this may encourage firms to retain experienced female workers. On the other hand, extended maternity leave imposes additional costs on firms. When employers are responsible for the costs of maternity leave, companies may see women of childbearing age as a financial risk. This is because maternity leave has direct costs to firms, such as paid leave, social insurance, training replacement workers and work disruptions. Since employers cannot predict which women plan to have children, which increases associated costs, firms may avoid hiring women capable of bearing children, leading to employment discrimination against women. As these forces work in opposite directions, the overall impact of maternity leave on gender equality is theoretically ambiguous.[4] However, in practice, studies have shown that discriminatory pressures often dominate, where firms attempt to avoid the costs associated with maternity leave by hiring fewer women and more temporary labour instead.[5] This is because the economic costs are borne by companies, thereby increasing the perceived costs for women who plan to take maternity leave.
Extended maternity leave policies not only impact employment decisions but also women’s participation in the workforce. Studies have found that extended maternity leave policies were associated with a decrease in female labour supply. After the 2016 maternity leave reform policies, women’s total work hours lowered by around 2.6 hours per week, and even more for women who have children, work in formal employment or live in regions with more traditional gender norms. Women worked fewer hours, potentially due to decreased confidence in promotion opportunities, increased societal pressure to have more children and greater household responsibilities.[6] This demonstrates how policies indirectly reshape behaviour and incentives. Pro-natal policies inadvertently contributed to societal norms that reinforced traditional gender roles regarding caregiving and women’s roles in the workforce. These norms shaped how employers treated women and how women adjusted their work decisions, reinforcing gender inequality in the workplace.
The effect of extended maternity leave relates to the concept of policy feedback, which theorizes that policies do not just solve problems but also change people’s behaviours, shaping future outcomes and creating new effects.[7] Pro-natal policies such as extended maternity leave influence how firms and workers make decisions, producing outcomes that extend beyond the policy’s original intentions. Employers responded by becoming reluctant to promote or hire women, while women adjusted their working hours and career plans in response to shifting social norms and caregiving responsibilities. This illustrates how policies initially aimed at promoting childbirth can unintentionally reshape employer behaviours, which increases gender inequity within the workforce. Ultimately, employers play a significant role in sustaining or reducing these inequalities and require altering hiring processes and firm decision-making to combat gender inequity.
Why should employers care about gender equity in hiring and within the workforce? Gender equity in the workforce is crucial because it helps firms to maximize talent and sustain long-term economic performance. When women face challenges to recruitment and promotion early in their careers, these gaps widen over time, limiting gender equality in management positions and reducing opportunities for innovation. Gender inequity can lead to a talent pipeline gap, in which fewer women advance into leadership roles, lowering companies’ productivity, innovation, and economic efficiency.[8]
What measures could help increase gender equity within the employment process and the workplace? One way to address these challenges is to promote shared parenting responsibilities by expanding and normalizing parental leave. Although there are paternal leave policies in China, they are not nationalized and typically last only seven to fifteen days under local and regional regulations.[9] By promoting paternity leave, caregiving responsibilities become more evenly distributed, and the perceived costs of hiring women and men become more equal for employers. In addition, expanding skills-based or anonymous screening for recruitment could reduce the possibility that gender affects employment decisions. By removing personal information such as gender, age or marital status, employers can isolate experience or skills when evaluating candidates, reducing unconscious bias in recruitment and allowing women to compete more fairly for employment opportunities.
Ultimately, pro-natal policies not only provide support but influence expectations, incentives and workplace behaviour over time. By understanding these broader effects, employers and policymakers can enhance existing measures to better support gender equity within the workforce. In the end, a sustainable demographic future not only depends on encouraging births but also on protecting women’s long-term participation in the workforce.
Maylyn Weng is a Contributor for Synergy’s East Asia section and is a fourth-year student double majoring in International Relations and Political Science at the University of Toronto St. George campus. Her research interests lie in East Asian politics, international security and Cold War history.
Bibliography
Ge, Run, and Xinzheng Shi. “How Does the Universal Two-Child Policy Affect Fertility Behavior?” China Economic Quarterly International 3, no. 4 (2023): 227–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceqi.2023.11.002.
Hu, Mingzhi, and Yinxin Su. 2025. “Extended Maternity Leave and Female Labour Supply: Evidence from a Regional Policy in China.” Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies 12 (2). https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.70017.
Liu, Hong, Meng Jiao, and Chuliang Luo. 2025. “Impact of Maternity Leave Policy Reform on Enterprise Labour Employment: Evidence from China Matched Employer-Employee Longitudinal Survey Data.” China Economic Quarterly International 5, no. 3: 161–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceqi.202 5.10.001.
Pierson, Paul. “When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change.” World Politics 45, no. 4 (1993): 595–628.https://doi.org/10.2307/2950710.
Shen, Yu, Xueting Qie, and Qingmiao Bi. “Maternity Leave Reform and Women’s Labor Supply: Evidence from China.” China Economic Review 87 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2024.102256.
Zhou, Qian. “Gender Equality in China’s Labor Market 2025.” China Briefing, March 8, 2025. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/gender-equality-in-chinas-labor-market/.
Zhou, Dream. “Paternity Leave Policies in China for 2025.” MSA Advisory, July 6, 2025. https://msadvisory.com/paternity-leave-in-china/.
Footnotes
Qian Zhou, “Gender Equality in China’s Labor Market 2025,” China Briefing, March 8, 2025, https://www.china-briefing.com/news/gender-equality-in-chinas-labor-market/. ↑
Run Ge and Xinzheng Shi, “How Does the Universal Two-Child Policy Affect Fertility Behavior?” China Economic Quarterly International 3, no. 4 (2023): 227, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceqi.2023.11.002.
Mingzhi Hu and Yinxin Su, “Extended Maternity Leave and Female Labour Supply: Evidence from a Regional Policy in China,” Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies 12, no. 2 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.70017.
Hong Liu, Meng Jiao, and Chuliang Luo, “Impact of Maternity Leave Policy Reform on Enterprise Labour Employment: Evidence from China Matched Employer-Employee Longitudinal Survey Data,” China Economic Quarterly International 5, no. 3 (2025): 164, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.10.001.
Liu, Jiao, and Luo, “Impact of Maternity Leave Policy Reform,” 169. ↑
Yu Shen, Xueting Qie, and Qingmiao Bi, “Maternity Leave Reform and Women’s Labor Supply: Evidence from China,” China Economic Review 87 (2024): 2, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2024.102256.
Paul Pierson, “When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change,” World Politics 45, no. 4 (1993): 598, https://doi.org/10.2307/2950710.
Mary Sharp Emerson, “Why Gender Equity in the Workplace Is Good for Business,” Professional & Executive Development – Harvard DCE, March 27, 2020, Harvard Division of Continuing Education, https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/why-gender-equity-in-the-workplace-is-good-for-business/.
Dream Zhou, “Paternity Leave Policies in China for 2025,” MSA Advisory, July 6, 2025, https://msadvisory.com/paternity-leave-in-china/. ↑
