Exploring the Dilemma of Equal Employment Rights and Countermeasures for Childcare Women-Taking China's "Mom Post" as a Background

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62517/jmsd.202512620

Author(s)

Jintong Zhang

Affiliation(s)

Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

Abstract

As a flexible form of employment to alleviate the employment pressure on child-rearing women, the policy value and practical gaps of "mother's posts" constitute a core issue in the field of equal employment. By reviewing representative literature in the field of equal employment and analyzing the special policies and safeguard detailed rules for "mother's posts" in the three provinces of Guangdong, Hubei, and Shandong from 2021 to 2024, the study finds that there is a deviation between the promotion of "mother's posts" and the intended policies: the label of "mother's posts" may reinforce traditional gender role expectations in employment; most positions are concentrated in low-skill sectors, hindering the career development of child-rearing women; although pilot provinces require enterprises to sign agreements and ensure social security coverage, in practice, the signing rate of written agreements for new types of "mother's posts" is low, rights and responsibilities are ambiguous, and the social security participation rate of employees is much lower than that of regular positions, this poses constraints on the realization of equal employment rights for women in parenting roles. Its underlying causes manifest as four major contradictions: first, the legal provisions are relatively general, and practical guidelines require further clarification; second, the coordination of multiple remedial measures fails; third, barriers to equal employment is highly concealed, making it difficult for workers to adduce evidence and resulting in high costs for safeguarding their rights; fourth, there is a prominent cost mismatch: the average time for workers to pursue rights protection is 3.2 months, the fine for enterprises' violations is relatively limited, and compensation for mental damage is mostly within 10,000 yuan, there may be an imbalance between the severity of punishment and the gains from illegal acts. In light of this, this paper proposes regulatory paths such as enhancing the operability of laws, optimizing the coordination of remedies, reasonably allocating the burden of proof, and strengthening the punishment and incentive mechanisms for enterprises' illegal acts, so as to provide support for improving the equal employment security system and promoting the standardized development of "mother's posts".

Keywords

Equal Employment Rights; "Mom Post"; Gender-based Employment Disparities

References

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