Do you believe that our government does help a working woman make her dream come true, being confident of her ability to be a capable mother?
According to the Bureau of Labor Insurance in
Taiwan, a maternity leave or a paid leave is a 60% of a work insurance of an employee, not “salary,” given to the mother or the father of a new-born baby for the first six months if either leave is applied for. Even though the law also promises a
working parent has a right to take a paid leave two years with children under 3, a paid leave is six months only. After
that, the minimum pay of the work insurance from the employer of a private company stops.
However,
the paid parental leave policy usually varies with whom people work with. If
one’s job is tenured in civil service, he/she is allowed to have a base salary, the maximum of which is probably
between 20,000 and 12,000, when a decision is made to take time off for the
baby or family. The base salary continues during the paid leave.
Taking a paid leave, in
civil service or in a company, a married couple with a base salary or a 60% of
a work insurance respectively have to face the circumstance that they actually
have to live within one income. The days when they used to spend double incomes
before giving the birth to a baby exist no more.
Don’t you think it’s cool? Isn’t it kind of
naive that our government believes that the paid policy encourages young
generations to have their children, actually not young anymore if a woman reaches
her late thirties? How could that paid policy work well when double incomes
become one?
Do you accept the statement that one
income can support at least three persons and leads to a good or plain living?
Or is a miserable one in front of them
to encounter? What about living in Taipei?
Why don’t working parents apply for a
paid leave and then take the precious time spending with their new born babies?
Are they afraid of they might be sacked
or unable to survive with one income or no income at all if it happens to a
single parent?
If you don’t believe what I say, you
could dig out the numbers yearly of how many married “professional women” take
their maternity leave. It seems crystal clear that working parents with a new born
baby (or babies) decide to ignore the offer of a paid leave, but keep their full-paid
job. Now what? What about their babies?
Even though Article 7 of the Constitution promises to
liberate women from the centuries-old oppression by men, women earn less than
men across all fields no matter what qualifications they have. Therefore, a paid
leave is mostly a working mother to face, with lower wages and missed promotions
compared to her working husband in general. The fact that gender inequality
can be applied to most of areas doesn’t surprise one to learn. All in all, it’s
an issue for working women. Why can't working women stick such
gender inequality? Nope!
Let’s give serious consideration to child caring.
The issue of it is closely
associated with women’s opportunities for employment. Generally speaking,
married women especially those with children are less likely than men to
develop their own career or undertake their further study.
One of the cause of the above is our government
hasn’t made real efforts in offering parents “child care centers,” which might
not definitely guarantee employed women or female students with children under
3 years old to keep their jobs or devote themselves to what they are doing or
planning to do. But, this is at least a chance the government could try as it has
promised. Especially for women who don’t work regular working hours, the child
care center should be running to support them. What happens to those working
women who have to deal with a sudden occurrence, which makes it impossible to
pick up their children on time? The other cause to interrupt women’s
achievement should be the increasing responsibilities of child caring
shouldering on them after being a mother.
In addition, the saddest part is daycare centers
are conducted by social welfare organizations and supervised by social
departments, while kindergartens are conducted by educational organizations
under supervision of the Ministry of Education. Is this a bother to anyone?
It tells that there is nothing about “knowledge
education” for the children under 3 years old and then it is not a bother to the Ministry of Education but to
parents with children under three.
Besides, it is really sarcastic. The Ministry of Education has made every effort to extend our compulsory education another 3 years. Yes, it is 12 years since 2014. The problematic dropouts of junior high schools seemed no need to question. The budget for the children under 3 years old for the social departments can’t definitely compete with 50 billions of dollars benefiting a few top national universities in Taiwan.
The huge sum of money has been running for years and
still continues. Don’t you think the Ministry of Education shouldn’t make a great brag, what so-called benefits those universities have gained would really fill
some vacancies at the top 100 universities worldwide? Shouldn’t the taxes paid
by the people be scrutinized and evaluated carefully?
Hey, why doesn’t the Ministry of Education pay attention to little children under 3? The needs from that is far beyond education within knowledge limits.
How can one be promised a bright future while being
ignored after he/she is born? Who
is responsible for the lack of
attention, not seeing the emergent need for the little ones? The way how
they are brought up is much more important than a non-experimental-but-expanded
compulsory education.
Dealing with the coming of her new-born baby starts lingering over in her mind after a working woman has been officially informed of the pregnancy. That makes her feel helpless and kind of guilty, as well as blame herself for the focus of her own career and income once her baby/babies can’t be taken care of well.
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