Exploration On The Legal System Of Parental Leave

With the development of China’s economy,problems such as low fertility rate and aging population have become increasingly prominent.At the same time,more and more modern women are entering the workplace and the family structure is becoming smaller and smaller,which weakens the role of intergenerational care.Multiple factors have led to the further increase of the time conflict between caring for infants and working between husband and wife.How to balance childcare and work has become a problem for young families.In the face of various current situations,the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Care Services for Infants and Young Children under the Age of 3,issued by the General Office of the National Academy of Annual Affairs in2019,encouraged local governments to explore and pilot the implementation of parental leave and maternity leave linked with the supporting services for infants and young children.Subsequently,in their population and family planning regulations or women’s rights and interests protection regulations,local governments have made beneficial exploration on the establishment of parental leave.To improve parental leave,it is inevitable to explore the connotation and characteristics of parental leave,distinguish parental leave from maternity leave and paternity leave,and avoid confusion and repetition of the functions of leave.From the point of view of the necessity of setting up parental leave,parental leave can relieve the pressure of caring for infants and improve the childbearing willingness of couples of childbearing age by giving workers of childbearing age certain parental leave;On the other hand,parental leave is also of great significance for safeguarding the right of early children to receive care,promoting the balance of family parental responsibilities,and improving female employment discrimination.From the perspective of the feasibility of setting up parental leave,the legislation of parental leave system in typical countries outside the country has a long history.Among them,Sweden,Germany,France and Japan have many useful experiences in the holiday system,such as the idea of setting up the equal division of labor within the family,flexible holiday usage methods,and highlighting the national responsibility in cost sharing,which are all worthy of our reference.Moreover,the Chinese government has continuously issued relevant documents to encourage all regions to actively explore the implementation,which shows that the exploration of parental leave has deep feasibility soil in China.At present,30 provincial administrative regions have tried to set up parental leave,and have stipulated the subject of application for leave,the length of leave and welfare benefits in the Regulations on Population and Family Planning.However,due to the late introduction of China’s parental leave from abroad,many of the detailed rules of the system have not been carried out in local legislation.Due to the lack of guidance of the upper law,the implementation standards in different regions are often controversial,and there are problems such as unclear application subject,too short time,lack of flexibility in use,single responsibility sharing subject and imperfect regulatory mechanism.Therefore,in view of China’s national conditions and foreign experience,the improvement of the legal system of parental leave can be carried out from the following aspects: clarifying the application of the qualifications of adoptive parents,stepparents and unmarried couples,and defining the scope of the holiday subject;Formulate reasonable vacation duration and flexible vacation use methods to promote the scientific implementation of vacation;To share the holiday cost reasonably by exploring the sharing mechanism of multiple responsibility subjects;Clarifying the authority of the labor supervision department and giving full play to the supervision responsibilities of the labor union organization to improve the supervision and management system and avoid the implementation of the legal system of parental leave has become a dead letter.