The government’s proposal to extend maternity leave by four weeks to 14 weeks and paternity leave from three to five days has been hotly debated. After two decades, the city will be finally catching up with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) recommendation of at least 14 weeks’ maternity leave.

TWF has long championed improving maternity leave in Hong Kong and welcomes the Government’s decision to provide subsidies for businesses to support the new policy. In the long term, however, companies should shoulder the cost of maternity leave and embrace family-friendly policies that enable women to thrive in the workforce.

While the newly proposed initiatives look good on paper, we urge the Government to implement the new policy citywide sooner – instead of waiting until 2022. TWF also believes Hong Kong should ultimately seek to replace maternity and paternity leave with parental leave so that parents could choose who stays at home to be the primary caregiver.

Child care options for working parents are severely lacking in Hong Kong, and it has a detrimental effect on women. Around one-third of women drop out of the workforce due to family care responsibilities. And those who keep working may experience the widespread “motherhood penalty” – less than half of employers say they would hire women with children.

Under such conditions, it is no surprise that the rate of women’s participation in Hong Kong’s workplace lags behind other global financial centres. Only 55% of women are in the workforce in Hong Kong – lower than in Singapore (60%), mainland China (61%) and Australia (59%). Moreover, the higher up the career ladder, the less likely we’ll see women: only 29% of management positions in Hong Kong are occupied by women – lower than Malaysia, the US and Canada.

Our city is grappling with numerous social, economic and demographic challenges – our birth rate is among the lowest in the world. Having women-friendly and family-friendly policies help make female employees less fearful of losing their job, less likely to leave work and feel more supported to have a family. And we know the more women join the workforce, the higher our GDP will be.

Research shows policies that support working mothers and fathers lead to greater gender diversity in the workplace, which in turn lead to better business outcomes. A company’s parental leave policy should be inclusive for all to allow everyone to thrive in the workplace. And also let's not forget that equality starts at home - join us in encouraging companies to adopt family friendly policies that help strengthen gender diversity.