Hello, I’m Jiang Lai.

The previous episode showed how marriage can function as an identity credential, determining which register, city, and protections someone may enter, while often remaining in another person’s hands. This episode moves to marriage’s next station: childbirth.

In early 2024, Ms. Liu returned to her job at a private Beijing company after 158 days of maternity leave. She was entitled to another fifteen days for a cesarean birth but gave them up. She explained: “The company was about to restructure, and I wanted to keep my original position.” The detail appeared in a February 2025 Workers’ Daily report.Those fifteen days were a legal right, yet she surrendered them to secure her job.

Before judging her choice, simply ask:why did leave designed to protect a woman giving birth become something she traded for employment security?

Remember that exchange. We will trace those fifteen days backward and see how the cost reached women step by step.

To understand the cost, return thirty years to where the story began.

In 1994, the Ministry of Labor issued the Trial Measures for Maternity Insurance for Enterprise Employees.It shifted maternity expenses from individual employers to social pooling.

The policy recognized that childbirth concerns society, not only a woman, and its cost should not fall on one company alone.When employers bear the entire cost, their hiring concerns ultimately burden women of childbearing age.

Moving the cost into a larger shared pool was farsighted. After thirty years, how far has that transfer gone?