China’s Three-Child Policy Puts More Pressure on Working Women
Gender discrimination is on the rise since the government began dismantling the one-child policy.
When a marketing director at an internet startup in Beijing told her bosses she was pregnant in 2017, they congratulated her. Then, she says, they began sending her on business trips with increased frequency. After some months they demoted her and hired another person to fill her position. When she had to take sick leave because of complications with her pregnancy, the company refused to pay her salary and removed her from the email system, leaving her little choice but to quit, she says.
Four years on, Liu Tao is still deep in a legal battle with her former employer. That name is a pseudonym she uses to speak about her case, to avoid losing out on future job opportunities or being bullied online, which has happened to other Chinese women who’ve sued their employers for gender discrimination. The ordeal has taken a toll on her finances—driving her to the brink of bankruptcy—and on her mental health: She says she contemplated suicide in January 2018 after a tribunal rejected the first of three labor dispute arbitration requests on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Her son was just 4 days old at the time. “It’s been an excruciating process,” says the 37-year-old, who’s seeking a public apology and 50,000 yuan ($7,728) as compensation for the emotional pain she’s endured. “All I want now is justice,” she says, “and that no more women will have to suffer what I did.”