Survey from Hong Kong’s largest political party finds 90 per cent agree mothers need flexible working hours and more childcare support
Mother-of-two Ding Ding*, 30, wishes she could live a life just like so many other young women her age, instead of having her entire world revolve around her family.
She gave up her job as a saleswoman in her early twenties after giving birth to her son and daughter, now aged six and seven.
Ding Ding tried to get work as a supermarket cashier several years ago to help ease the financial burden on her husband, but was forced to leave the job just a few months after other family members could no longer offer childcare support.
“I can only rely on myself to raise the kids and wait for them to grow up. I do not expect help from others,” she said.
Childcare support has remained a steadfast demand of many mothers in Hong Kong, at a time when authorities are looking for ways to address the city’s labour shortage.
The latest government projections forecast that the shortage is set to worsen and reach a gap of about 180,000 workers by 2028.
Secretary for Labour Chris Sun Yuk-han said on Sunday that authorities had programmes to incentivise unemployed residents looking to return to work.
He cited the re-employment allowance pilot scheme, which gives successful applicants a payment of HK$10,000 (US$1,280) if they remain employed full time for six months, and another HK$10,000 if they continue working in the same job for six more months.
“We will carry on the scheme. It has positively shown that women, who have two minds on whether they should work again, have been encouraged to try to return to the workforce,” Sun said.
Hong Kong’s largest political party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), found in a recent survey that more than 90 per cent of interviewees said giving mothers flexible working hours and more childcare support were the most effective means of encouraging them to return to the workforce.
Lawmakers from the party also said that factors such as employers introducing family-friendly policies and whether mothers received community-based childcare support affected their willingness to return to work.
“Hong Kong is at kindergarten or even baby level when it comes to family-friendly policies. But that’s what we need to advocate for,” lawmaker Nixie Lam Lam said.
The DAB survey, which interviewed 806 people, found that about 14 per cent of carers had to take a day off because they had no one to turn to during childcare emergencies.
Ding Ding recalled she once had to ask her supervisor at the supermarket if she could leave work early because her mother-in-law did not know how to give medicine to one of her children when they fell ill.
“I had heard things from a colleague who asked me: ‘How can you suddenly leave work or apply for leave? Who will take up your shift?’” she said.
Her husband, who is a lift technician, was unable to help around the house much when the children came home from school as he usually worked late hours.
Ding Ding said she eventually quit her cashier job because her mother-in-law refused to help look after the children any more.
In a bid to bolster the recruitment of caretakers, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announced in last year’s policy address that authorities would increase the hourly wages of “community nanny” from HK$25 (US$3.2) to HK$40.
The childcare scheme, which is overseen by the Social Welfare Department, allows parents to send children below the age of nine to community centres or the homes of nannies between 7am and 11pm.
But Ding Ding said she would not feel safe entrusting her children to someone if she felt they lacked professional training.
DAB lawmakers also said some parents were reluctant to use the service after a community nanny was arrested on suspicion of severely injuring a nine-month-old baby earlier this year.
The suspect was linked to a childcare programme run by Yan Oi Tong, an NGO in Tuen Mun.
“Of course, we hope to professionalise our community’s nannies, but we have to take it step by step. We should not deny their efforts simply because of these one or two incidents,” legislator Elizabeth Quat said.
Ding Ding said she reached out to the Hong Kong Federation of Women’s Centres last year to join a programme that supported full-time parents and carers, and later felt she could trust sending her son to the organisation’s childcare centres.
Since leaving her cashier job, the mother-of-two has also looked for other part-time roles near her home in the hopes of getting more flexible hours, including work at convenience stores, warehouses and Hong Kong-style cafes known as cha chaan teng.
But she said none of those jobs offered hours that could accommodate her parenting schedule.
Lawmaker Lam said that the main obstacle stopping companies from offering flexible work arrangements for parents was fairness concerns from other employees.
“It boils down to peer pressure. Managements have noted that some colleagues take issue with other employees being entitled to enjoy flexible working hours just because they have children,” the legislator said.
She added that mutual understanding among the public was difficult to build.
Ding Ding, meanwhile, said she believed she would “get her life back” and be able to return to work once her children reached Primary Six at school, adding that the emotional toll of feeling alone as a parent had eaten away at her for years.
“I do not want to be trapped like living in a bird cage for the rest of my life,” she said.
*Nickname used at interviewee’s request.