More Than Just a Day

Prior to every second Sunday in May, Hong Kong sees a mass of Mother’s Day promotions: flowers, dinners and gifts aimed to help mothers relax for the day. These annual niceties belie the systematic undervaluation of the work shouldered by mothers and caregivers. In addition to pervasive negative effects on women with children, this poses worrying implications to anyone in a caregiving role.

Up to 60% of Hong Kong’s population are working-age parents living with children. Whilst migrant domestic workers help many families manage households and childcare, 14% of caregivers take leave due to the lack of emergency childcare support, and multiple barriers hinder mothers returning to work. For low-income mothers and caregivers, external help is often not an option and exacerbates barriers to employment.

Women are the majority of primary providers of childcare.  Compared to much lower averages among other global cities, Hong Kong reports 30% of new mothers suffering from postpartum depression (PPD). Whilst measures such as the extension of maternity leave by 4 weeks in 2020 led to a 22% reduction in PPD, greater support is needed to offset geo-specific stressors such as housing conditions and high living costs, Hong Kong holds societal expectations around the sacrifices mothers and guardians will make for their families at the expense of their own well-being.

The lack of comprehensive support for the well-being of mothers is highly visible in the workplace. Repeatedly, women with children are seen as less-desirable candidates. In the workplace, they are viewed as less committed and less competent than their male counterparts or childless female counterparts, and are less likely to be hired for a position and are offered lower salaries – this does not apply to fathers who are estimated to receive a 3%-10% boost in earnings. This disparity is partly due to biases around the role of fathers in being the traditional provider for families and mothers being seen as primary caregivers in the home.  Outside of their roles, they are also expected to take on extra responsibilities including non-promotable work that often requires added emotional labour. This trend reflects the idea of motherhood as an expected and essential public good without sufficient visibility over the extent to which their physical, mental and emotional labour nurtures and sustains our families, workplaces and communities.

For caregivers that fall outside of the norm, such as stay-at-home fathers, they have to grapple with ideas of their own masculinity and how others perceive that masculinity when taking on stereotypically female responsibilities.  This can result in isolation (for instance, if there are not gender-inclusive stay at home parenting groups) or it can lead to a lack of targeted resources supporting their day-to-day responsibilities.

Improving the lives of mothers requires collective effort. At TWF, we regularly engage our Male Allies and Young Allies in discussions to encourage awareness and empower individuals, especially men, to proactively address challenges caregivers face in professional and personal spheres. We advocate to tackle critical issues like the motherhood penalty and for Hong Kong to develop methods to assess the dollar value of unremunerated work like caregiving and household duties so that as a society we can better recognise and support their vital work and their contributions to our economy.

True recognition goes beyond one day of celebration. As a society, we need to fundamentally shift the way we value care work, and those who provide it. Here are some ways we all can better support the work of mothers and caregivers:

As a family, reflect on your share of responsibilities. How can you contribute and make plans that address both the primary caregiver and children’s needs?

As an employer, reflect on your organisation’s culture. Are staff of all genders encouraged to take advantage of policies that support caregiving needs?

As a community, reflect on inclusivity in public spaces. What facilities might improve accessibility for alternative caregivers to children?