◎ Guo Suo
The government is promoting "Taiwan's New Population Countermeasure Strategy" and plans to extend the current eight weeks of maternity leave to 12 weeks, and increase paternity check-up and paternity leave from seven to 14 days. Relevant amendments to the law are currently being reviewed by the Legislative Yuan, and some legislators have even advocated further increasing maternity leave to fourteen weeks. The starting point is certainly worthy of recognition. Women need sufficient time to rest and recover physically and mentally after giving birth, and families also need more institutional support. However, the Childcare and Employment Policy Alliance recently raised another issue that deserves to be taken seriously: If women’s maternity leave continues to increase, but men’s paternity and childcare responsibilities do not increase simultaneously, is it possible that a policy that originally hopes to take care of women will in turn increase women’s hidden costs in the workplace?
Taiwan’s New Population Countermeasures Strategy-Family Support. (Taken from the official website of the Executive Yuan)
The question has never been "should mothers take more weeks off?" but rather why the time away from the workplace caused by childbirth is still mainly borne by women. Citing relevant Brazilian economic research in 2025, the Birth Alliance pointed out that when only women’s maternity leave is increased and men’s paternity leave is not increased simultaneously, women’s average salary, promotion rate and the proportion of women in high-skilled positions may be adversely affected. Labor market conditions in different countries cannot be directly applied to Taiwan, so we cannot conclude that Taiwan's extension of maternity leave will inevitably lead to the same results. However, it at least raises a policy warning: when the law clearly focuses on women in long-term care leave, companies may also strengthen the existing impression that "maternity mainly affects women's work" when recruiting, promoting and manpower allocation.
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As Taiwan faces a declining birthrate, it is this structure that really needs to be changed. In fact, the government has not only planned to extend maternity leave, but also proposed "six plus three" childcare leave, parental leave, flexible working hours without salary reduction, and subsidies for corporate employment agencies. Among them, short-term employment agencies plan to provide a daily subsidy of 800 yuan per person. This policy direction deserves recognition, because the cost of childbirth cannot be borne only by mothers, nor can it be left entirely to enterprises to absorb. Looking further, future system design should continue to increase the incentives for fathers to actually participate in care, so that taking time off to accompany their children is no longer just "helping the wife", but a family responsibility that fathers should share.
Future system design should continue to increase the incentives for fathers to actually participate in care, so that taking time off to accompany their children is no longer just "helping the wife", but a family responsibility that fathers should share. (Drawing by this newspaper)
Therefore, I support the extension of maternity leave to 12 weeks; but the policy cannot stop at 12 weeks, let alone fall into a numbers competition of "is 12 weeks or 14 weeks friendly enough?" What is really worth asking is, after the child is born, can the father leave the workplace to take care of him? Will child care be available after my mother returns to work? Are companies willing to allow parents to flexibly adjust their working hours? Can the government bear more replacement labor costs? When a company sees a thirty-year-old male and a thirty-year-old female job applicant, it should not assume that the woman will be out of the workforce longer than the man because of the possibility of having children in the future. What the birthrate reduction policy really wants to change is not just the length of maternity leave, but making the entire society truly accept one thing: women are the ones who give birth to children, but raising children should never be only the responsibility of women.
(The author is a freelance reviewer)
