Women's marital or childbearing status not germane to applying for job

AS PART OF THE GOVERNMENT'S EFFORTS to promote gender equality in employment, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and eight other ministries, agencies and social groups, issued a notice on Thursday forbidding employers asking female job applicants about their marital and childbearing status. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

By Saturday evening, the hashtag#Employers forbidden to ask female job applicants about marital or childbearing status# had already been read 310 million times on Sina Weibo, China's equivalent to Twitter, making it one of the hottest topics of the weekend. More than 66,000 bloggers voiced their opinions on the move, with the majority of them expressing their support.

Although the public's attention has fallen on the clause about marital and childbearing status only, actually, the whole document, titled "Notice on further regulating employment activities so as to promote the employment rate of women", contains more content than the one that made the buzz. For example, it vows to strengthen skills training for women, more strictly implement the birth insurance system, as well as make it easier for women to take employers to court if they believe they have been the victims of unfair treatment.