Little flower shop at forefront of big idea

It has been three months since Minhang District's Qibao Town responded to Shanghai's appeal to create more "fertility-friendly" jobs.

The appeal raised people's concerns about demography and its future, workplace gender equality and corporate economics.

At around 9am in a flower shop on Xinlong Road, Yuan Jing, a newly employed assistant, was trimming a sunflower bouquet, while her cellphone was vibrating as a message arrived: "The school will have an open class tomorrow morning and we invite you to join."

This might have been something of a "crisis" for many working mothers who would struggle with asking for time off, while in this 85-square-meter shop, employees have flexible work schedules and their children can also do their homework there.

The Bai Hui Fan Hua floral store is a small example of Shanghai's trial of fertility-friendly positions citywide.

In December, the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions and Shanghai Women's Federation released a notice on "Trial of Fertility-Friendly Positions Citywide" against a backdrop of a continuing decline in the birth rate.

Qibao was among the first to answer the call. There were challenges.

"When we sent a notice to 322 companies through WeChat, three responded with flextime positions," said Yao Xiaoqing, deputy chief of the town's community affairs reception center.

"They are Bai Hui Fan Hua floral store, a handcraft production company and a restaurant, offering a total of five birth-friendly positions," said Yao.

"Full-time mothers mostly want to return as white-collar workers," Li Danfeng, an employment guidance professional in Qibao, pointed out. "Yet their condition of frequently asking for a leave avails few regular white-collar positions for them."

Against all odds, staff from the town's community affairs reception center maintain a positive attitude on coordination between full-time mothers and potential employers. For companies who play a helpful role in female worker employment, they will be listed as "fertility-friendly employers" and enjoy policy analysis from professional government service personnel.

So far 13 people have applied for fertility-friendly positions in Qibao.

Community employment service stations in the district are sending questionnaires to residents about training in such positions. Full-time mothers are now able to receive free training sessions near their neighborhoods.

Shang Aiying, the Bai Hui Fan Hua flower store owner, had been the chief of a kindergarten and a headmaster of an off-campus training institution. She had been enduring a work intensity of seven days a week and four hours commuting daily for several years.

In 2024 she opened her own flower store and its work schedule for employees is flexible.

This is made possible through adopting a team of two from 2pm to 4pm daily, providing one person off-work and the other can still maintain work inside the store. A manager will refer to schedules of the about five or six employees in a new week and make overall arrangements. Through mutual aid scheduling, employees are able to take care of their families and a higher retention of workforce is created.

Yet such foundational innovation comes at a cost.

"Headquarters economy plays a big role in Qibao's economy structure and such firms tend to prefer standardized management," Yao said.

When Yao and other officials from the community affairs reception center were visiting some manufacturing corporations, their human resource managers pointed out their dilemmas: "Suspension of an assembly line for just one minute may cost a company tens of thousands of yuan, so a flexible working schedule is really hard to adopt."

Even for small enterprises like Bai Hui Fan Hua, such an innovation poses higher management costs and longer employee training sessions.

"Real equality is about re-channeling duties rather than creating a workplace greenhouse," said Guo Yanjun, a law professor from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. "In Sweden, parents of a new baby share a total of 480 days' parental leave. When the recruitment cost for a male and a female employee is the same, gender differentiation treatment tends to be minimalized."

"In Shanghai fertility-friendly positions are for both full-time mothers and full-time fathers," Zhu Junjie, deputy chief of Minhang employment promotion center, said.

Fertility-friendly positions are now being posted on "闵行易就业" ("Easy Jobs in Minahng") applet on WeChat and Shanghai's new employment information website http://jobs.rsj.sh.gov.cn.

The district's employment promotion center regularly hosts offline job fairs that also include fertility-friendly positions.