Beijing awards additional maternity leave for third child

Beijing’s health authority has announced that mothers of a third child would be able to apply for one to three months of additional leave if their workplace agrees to it, while their spouses will be eligible for 15 days of paternity leave, as part of the government’s incentive to encourage larger families.

This is on top of an addition 30 days of maternity leave that mothers of a third child were awarded at end-May.

Until now, mothers in Beijing were entitled to three to four months of maternity leave as a standard, depending also on the difficulty of delivery or other conditions, China Daily writes. 

Starting June, China allowed all couples to have a third child, in efforts to increase the nation’s fertility rates. 

Sichuan and Jiangxi provinces now award subsidies to couples who have their third child. Beijing’s move makes it the third area to top on benefits to award citizens who have more children. 

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The number of newborns in China last year recorded 12 million, down from 14.65 million in 2019. The country’s total fertility rate of women of childbearing age was 1.3, a “relatively low level”, based on the results of the seventh national population census released by the National Bureau of Statistics in May.