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Taking lead in China, province offers women 30 days maternity leave
Feb 26, 2023HONG KONG: To encourage marriage and birth rates, some Chinese provinces are offering young newlyweds 30 days of paid leave, the Communist Party mouthpiece, People’s Daily Health, said this week.
The northwestern province of Gansu and the coal-producing province of Shanxi are now offering 30 days leave, while Shanghai provides 10 days and Sichuan still only three days leave, according to the People’s Daily Health.
“Extending marriage leave is one of the effective ways of increasing the fertility rate,” Yang Haiyang, dean of the Social Development Research Institute of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, said, according to Reuters.
“The extension of marriage leave is mainly in some provinces and cities with relatively slow economic development,” he noted, adding that there was an urgent need to both expand the labour force and stimulate consumption.
China’s population fell last year for the first time in six decades, according to official data – a turning-point that is expected to mark the start of a long period of decline.
