Parental leave subsidy regulation gathering dust

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on March 29, 2006. It reports that when the Gender Equality Employment Law took effect in 2002, many people in Taiwan hoped that its regulations on the payment of subsidies for parental leave would encourage more women to join the workforce. However, so far, the government still has not drafted details as to who should get paid and how much.

Various legislators and women and labor advocates recently criticized the government for its inefficiency in handling the issue. They complained that although the law has been implemented for four years, no substantial details regarding the payment of subsidies have been put into place. They urged the Council of Labor Affairs and the Council for Economic Planning and Development to quickly appropriate sufficient funds to support the law.

Other issues in concern include whether subsidies for parental leave should be covered by the social insurance system, whether special laws needed to be passed for the government to authorize the payment, and whether the payment should be restricted to working women or may be applicable to unemployed women as well.

However, officials from the Council of Labor Affairs argued that because the implementation of the law would significantly affect the national social welfare system, it would require much research and deliberation to come up with any detailed proposal.

Results of a recent study conducted by the Council for Economic Planning and Development show that 10,329 people have applied for parental leave since the enactment of the Gender Equality Employment Law in 2002, and about 95 percent of these were women.

Results of the study also show that when non-working mothers were asked why they had no plans to enter the job market, 49.39 percent of respondents belonging to the 25 to 49 age group said that they needed to take care of their children.

Finally, results of the study show that although the labor force participation rate for women rose from 43.3 percent in 1984 to 47.71 percent in 2004, it was still about 20 percentage points behind that of men.