Backlash for firm over maternity leave advice

Three women told to take turns getting pregnant to avoid ‘paralysing’ business

Company executives who advised three female employees to take turns applying for maternity leave so the business operation would not be “paralysed” have caused a backlash on mainland social media.

Coincidentally, the three unidentified women employed by a government institution were planning to have children around the same time. When senior executives learned of this, they held a meeting with the trio to tell them they should get pregnant in rotation to minimise inconvenience for the firm, local media reported.

“You need to take turns to get pregnant,” one of the executives reportedly told the women.

One of the women, who is 28 years old, got married before she joined the company earlier this year. She said she had planned on getting pregnant this year even if she did not get the job.

Another woman, aged 37, who works in a similar job and is identified in media reports as “F”, had also just got married and wanted to have a baby as soon as possible. The third woman, identified as “Y”, is also 37 years old and was planning to have her second child.

The women said they were surprised when they were asked by the executives to attend a meeting to discuss their pregnancy plans.

One female executive tried to convince the trio they had to abandon their original plans for having children around the same time as the institution could not handle being left short-staffed.

The 28-year-old woman was unsure how to deal with the request and sought advice online.

Her Weibo news post explaining the situation went viral and had received 10,880 comments at the time of writing.

One person said: “If I worked in a company with three colleagues on maternity leave, I would be driven crazy by the overloaded work.”

One woman commented: “Look how difficult it is for women to have a job.”

At the beginning of this year, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported there were 9.56 million births in 2022. It is the first time the number of births has fallen below 10 million since 1950.

There were 16 provinces in the country that recorded a negative population growth rate last year.