Jobs tailored for mothers popular in China

A teacher teaches stay-at-home mothers how to make cakes at a vocational school in Changle district, Fuzhou, capital of southeast China's Fujian Province. (Photo/Xie Guiming)

Jobs tailored for mothers who are still of working age and have children aged 12 and below are helping them obtain flexible employment and strike a balance between work and taking care of their kids, an employment model that has been widely popular with stay-at-home mothers across China.

Pi Rongjie, whose child is 4 years old, works for an LED factory near her child's kindergarten in Jing'an county, Yichun city, east China's Jiangxi Province. The company offers flexible employment for stay-at-home mothers.

Unlike her colleagues on the company’s other production lines, mothers working under this model including Pi can clock in half an hour later and get off duty between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. These flexible work schedules enable her to strike a balance between work and sending and picking up her child, Pi said.

"We are a labor-intensive company and need to hire a large number of operators year-round," said Huang, head of the factory, adding that jobs for stay-at-home mothers benefit both the company and these women.

Under the guidance of the local government, Huang chose several production lines suitable for stay-at-home mothers. His factory has offered dozens of positions to mothers like Pi.

"This has not only allowed us to hire workers in a timely manner but also to help local mothers secure a stable income," Huang said.

In addition to providing flexible working hours, some regions are optimizing the working environment and model to better help young mothers through measures such as allowing them to take their children to the workplace and setting up community-based workshops for them.

Female villagers work in an umbrella company in Youyang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. (Photo/Qiu Hongbin)

"As a new form of employment, jobs tailored for mothers can help them better strike a balance between work and family life. This not only resolves the employment issues faced by some women, but also exerts a positive influence on enterprises and society," said Zhang Li, a professor at the School of Law of Fujian Normal University in southeast China's Fujian Province.

Meanwhile, the development of new business models such as livestreaming e-commerce has brought more options for mothers seeking flexible employment. For example, positions for mothers including operational staff, livestreamers, and customer service staff allow them to work from home.

In 2022, a total of 17 Chinese government departments jointly released a guideline on support policies for employment and other aspects to boost birth rates. The guideline called for efforts to improve the institutional mechanisms for boosting employment for women and step up vocational training for female workers, especially young mothers.

The emergence of jobs tailored for young mothers can help stay-at-home mothers overcome re-employment difficulties to some extent.

Wu Haiying, former vice president of the All-China Women's Federation, suggested that employers can, based on their actual situations, determine the workload of mothers working under this model. She also called for the needs of stay-at-home mothers to be better served through measures such as offering them positions through community-based public welfare projects.

South China's Guangdong Province is one of the pioneers in exploring the new flexible employment model for mothers in the country. In recent years, it has taken multiple measures to promote the sound development of this model.

In 2022, Zhongshan city in Guangdong released various measures to promote this new form of employment, including encouraging employers in sectors such as retail, banking, and insurance to offer jobs tailored to mothers.

A female employee works at Yuncheng Xinyuan Electronic Science & Technology Co., Ltd. in Xiaxian county, Yuncheng city, north China's Shanxi Province. The company offers jobs to over 200 left-behind women and unemployed people. (Photo/Zhang Xiufeng)

Last year, the province drafted a document on providing more flexible job opportunities for mothers, including encouraging enterprises above designated size to offer such positions to them, and supporting diverse and practical employment and entrepreneurship skills training for them.

Zhang suggested that mothers working under this model sign labor contracts that specify the rights and obligations of both parties, including key clauses on job duties, working hours, salary, and social insurance.

In addition, organizations such as women's federations should keep close contact with mothers working under this model, safeguard their legitimate rights and interests, listen to the views of employers, and improve mechanisms for labor dispute mediation to ensure the healthy development of this flexible employment model.