How to help reverse declining birth rates? Encourage 'family-friendly' jobs

Hu Wei, 35, has been visiting the employment centers in downtown Shanghai since the beginning of the year, looking for a "family-friendly" job.

The new job-seeking trend is part of China's latest efforts to reverse a decline in the birth rate that began in 2022. Nationally, births dropped to a ratio of 2.82 percent per 1,000 population in 2023 from 3.09 percent in 2015.

In Shanghai, an even smaller birth rate is among the lowest in the world. According to the Shanghai Health Commission, the birth rate of the registered population was 0.72.

Hu's wife works full time, so he is looking for a job that would allow him time to accompany their 8-year-old daughter to and from school.

"I used to work in sales, with relatively flexible work hours," he told Shanghai Daily. "But I'm 35 now, and it was getting increasingly difficult for me when I had to work too much overtime. I quit last October but haven't found a suitable replacement job yet."

The new promotion of "family-friendly" jobs is aimed at helping parents with children 12 years and younger. It tries to address concerns about work-family balance that deter couples from having more than one child or any children at all.

"It's impossible for a couple to both work full time if their parents aren't available to babysit," said Sylvia Zhang, a stay-at-home mother in Shanghai. "My husband and I are from Qingdao in Shandong Province, and our parents have not retired. So after having a baby, I had no choice but to quit my job."

Now, like Hu, Zhang is also looking for a job that allows her part-time or full-time work from home.

All districts in Shanghai are taking measures to help people like Hu and Zhang.

In the Nanjing Road E. Subdistrict, where Hu was in job search, an employment center has a window dedicated to promoting family-friendly jobs. Center personnel visit residents to understand their needs and businesses to urge them to create such positions. It also conducts training sessions for those who want to learn new skills to adapt to a changing job market.

"Our survey showed that in our subdistrict, 20 people are currently looking for such jobs," said Wang Weitao, director of the employment service center of the subdistrict. "Meanwhile, some enterprises in our district have already offered flexible work times, and we have listed them 'family-friendly' enterprises. Seven of them, such as Budweiser China and Aiyide Nursing Home, have promised us to provide family-friendly jobs and will start recruiting as soon as possible."

Wang said that the subdistrict wants to break the stereotype that such jobs are only for mothers, amid labeling in some places outside Shanghai that they are "mom jobs."

In fact, the first person in the subdistrict to secure a "family-friendly" job was a husband now working in data processing. The man, who declined to talk to Shanghai Daily, is now able to send his two children to school before work and pick them up by leaving the office early.

Still, options remain very limited. At this year's annual Shanghai spring jobs fair, for example, only 350 jobs from 11 businesses were "family friendly" among the 26,000 positions offered by more than 1,000 employers.

Job seeker Zhang told Shanghai Daily that she has gone to several job fairs in different districts and found employment offers such as restaurant cleaning, property management assistant, cinema box-office clerk and soccer coach for preschoolers.

"None of them is ideal for me," she said. "My dream job is to do multimedia marketing work from home, but such jobs still require nine to five in an office."

Businesses do face challenges in creating family-friendly jobs because that process requires a revamp in their business structure and time to make the adjustments.

"It's a redesign of work processes, such as splitting task modules and adjusting evaluation standards, which may significantly increase human-resource management costs for many small and medium-sized businesses," said a human-resource manager at a state-owned company, who defined himself only by the surname Li. "This could subsequently lead to a decrease in team collaboration efficiency and an increase in communication costs."

But some employers said they believe family-friendly jobs could prove beneficial in the long term. In Minhang District, a flower shop called Baihui Blossom has hired several employees on flexible work-time schedules.

"I always arrange two employees at the same time between 2-4pm every day so that if one needs emergency family leave, the other can stay on at work," said Shang Aiying, owner of the shop.

Shang said she is a mother who endured a lot of stress managing a work-home balance when she was younger.

"Now that my child is in college, I want to set up an environment tuned to today's parents," she said. "The management cost is higher, but when employees are happy, their families are happy and they are more productive at work."

Family-friendly jobs were a point of discussion at the annual sessions of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Zhang Qiang, an NPC deputy, proposed that the government provide special subsidies for "family-friendly jobs" -- for example, 20,000 yuan (US$2,764) per job per year to encourage businesses to provide more flexible hours for young parents.

"Hidden discrimination against pregnant women and new mothers in employment still persists," said Zhang, who works at the Taixing City Power Supply Co in Jiangsu Province. "With proper preferential policies, enterprises can be more confident about hiring women."