No baby, no job!

Shanghai wives find an unexpected hurdle to employment

From early June to early August 26-year-old Yin Yawei sent her resume to some 70 companies and had nearly 60 phone and face-to-face interviews. She has four years of website operating experience and has worked for one of China's leading real estate information platforms. Headhunters have repeatedly told Yin that she could get a very good job with her ability and experience.

Unable to find work by late July, she started applying for relatively low-paid jobs, as a cashier in a supermarket or cinema ticket collector. But no one wanted to employ her, even for these menial jobs. "I felt very low," Yin said. "I was always worried and had lost all my confidence."

Yin got married in March and has not had a child and is not pregnant. And that seems to be the problem.

Invited for an interview

In June she received a call from a human resources manager, asking her to come in for a face-to-face interview. They had a pleasant phone conversation until Yin was asked about her marriage and children. "I told him I was married but didn't have a baby," she said. And then the conversation changed and he rang off soon afterwards without mentioning a face-to-face interview again.

She met a similar response several times on her job hunt. Once she told would-be employers she was married but childless and not pregnant they gave up on her. "Gradually, I realized this was the problem," she told the Global Times.

In April, Yin left her job with a social media company because she felt the job didn't suit her any longer. She didn't think twice about resigning, believing she would have no trouble finding a better position.

She was wrong. In July she had a moment of hope. After applying for a job with a new mobile app company in Zhabei district, she was interviewed and apparently had the job in hand. "They were satisfied with my work experience and even suggested I would be employed at a more senior position," Yin said. No one seemed concerned at all when she told them she was married but not a mother.

One week later, however, she was told that the company could not employ her. A friend who worked for the same company asked human resources staff there what had happened and was told "we didn't want to hire a woman who might soon fall pregnant and ask for months of paid leave."

The scenario was replayed when Yin applied for a job as a project supervisor with a Singapore-based social networking software company. The interview went well and the interviewer, a Frenchman, assured her he didn't mind working with a married woman who was not a mother. She left the interview feeling elated but then didn't hear anything from the company for two weeks. Eventually she got a call saying she was not needed after all. "They told me that one of their bosses, a Chinese woman, suggested I should be rejected - because I hadn't had a baby."

After so many rejections Yin was feeling very insecure. In July she started looking for work in shops and markets but encountered the same reaction. However, unlike the city companies that gave her a raft of different excuses to explain why they could not employ her, a local supermarket manager told her directly that he would only hire women who had children.

In summer she applied for a job in a city jewelry store. The position had been spotted by a friend and after three interviews Yin was quietly confident. But at the fourth and what should have been the last interview, the employer gave her a contract to sign. "It was a contract where I had to promise I would not give birth to a child within a certain number of years. I had to fill in the number of years and sign it."

Today Yin is still angry at the contract she was offered - she felt this violated her rights. She walked out of the shop without signing it but later thought if she had signed it it would be proof of the shop's illegality.

Not alone

Yin is not alone in this situation. Last October, a Shanghai woman surnamed Sun lost her job five months after getting married. "My boss thought that I would be pregnant before long," the 26-year-old said. "She told me that my work didn't suit a pregnant woman, and suggested that I'd better look for another job."

The boss gave her an extra two months' salary as a bonus and Sun began to look for a new position, sending out 60 or so copies of her resume over the next month. She had seven face-to-face interviews but no job offers. As a graduate of one of Shanghai's leading universities, she also got the impression she was not being employed because she hadn't had a baby. "Two companies told me to my face that I wasn't employable because I was married but not a mother," she told the Global Times.

At a steel company in Hongkou district, Sun's interview was going well until she was asked, was she married, did she have a baby? "Ah, what a pity!" she was told. "Frankly speaking, you have a very impressive education record and work experience, but I can't hire you because you're married but you don't have a baby." The middle-aged employer explained that earlier an employee had promised she would not be getting pregnant for at least two years but within three months she was pregnant and asking for sick leave. "I learned a lesson from that."

His words outraged Sun. The next day she complained about employers on her WeChat account. "Don't you have mothers? Were you born in stones?"

Although Sun and Yin were honest about their marriage situations this was no help getting them employment. Yin has a friend, a 29-year-old married Beijing woman who came to Shanghai and began looking for work. After months of not being able to get a job she rewrote her resume, pretending to be single. She was given a job with a major company soon afterwards.

This year the "single" woman plans to have a baby. Yin told her to buy wedding candy months beforehand to give to her colleagues and then she could announce her pregnancy safely. "So last month she took a heap of candy and told her colleagues she had just got married," Yin said.