Chinese unions tell employers to stop asking women about their marital status

HONG KONG — Several Chinese trade unions have issued notices to companies to stop asking female job seekers about their marital and childbearing status, as women concerned about discrimination at work resist government entreaties to boost the national birth rate.

Requiring job applicants to declare their marital and childbearing status has long been seen as a way for Chinese employers to avoid hiring women who plan to get married or have children in the near future.

Employers “shall not further inquire or investigate the marriage and childbearing status of female job applicants,” read a notice from the state-backed trade union of Hunan province in central China that was posted last week around International Women’s Day on the Chinese social media platform WeChat.

The notice also said employers should not limit recruitment to men, stipulate a preference for male job applicants or require pregnancy tests as a condition of employment.

Similar notices were posted by unions in the southern industrial hub of Shenzhen and the northwestern province of Qinghai.

The notices have been widely shared in recent days on Chinese social media, where users discussed the challenges that women face when applying for jobs.

“Female employees are expected to lie when employers ask about personal privacy during the job search process and give the employer a satisfactory answer if they really like the job,” said a user on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote.

As much as some employers would prefer their female workers to remain single, women are getting the opposite instructions from the Chinese government, which has been pressuring them to get married and have children to help address the declining and fast-aging population.

Women are being encouraged to embrace more “traditional” roles in society as wives and mothers, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has personally called on women to promote a “childbearing culture.”

Some have rushed to adopt Beijing’s line.

Last month, a company in China rolled back a policy that threatened never-married and divorced employees with termination if they were still single by the end of September following public uproar. 

The company’s notice had criticized single employees for “not responding to the national call.”

Despite women making strides in the workplace, achieving gender equality has been an uphill battle in China.

It was only in 2012 that the State Council, China’s Cabinet, prohibited employers from reducing female employees’ wages or terminating their contracts because of pregnancy and childbirth.

In an effort to encourage childbearing, Chinese officials have rolled out a series of measures including subsidies, improved child care and longer maternity leave.

Those measures have had limited impact on Chinese women, who cite fear of falling behind in their careers among the reasons they hesitate to have children.

A third of women in the country still take less than the 98 days of maternity leave they are entitled to, according to a survey last year by the Women’s Studies Institute of China.

Though the trade unions’ notices were praised by some as a step forward for women, others questioned whether companies would take them seriously.

“Will there be any punishment for violating the rules? Most likely not,” read one comment on Xiaohongshu.