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PLAN Quality Of Life

The PLAN claims that it continues to spend millions of dollars to upgrade the living and working conditions for its forces, including housing, entertainment, and work facilities. The focus has been on grassroots-level units that are not located near urban areas. The PLAN, along with local governments, also helps find jobs for family members. The PLAN has had to implement these expensive reforms as a means of recruiting and retaining the type of force that it needs for the present and future.

Military Pay

Neither the PLA nor the PLAN publish detailed statistics about their personnel or military pay. As a result, it is difficult to ascertain the exact pay scale and subsidies for each officer and enlisted person. The majority of PLAN personnel still receive their monthly pay in cash from their unit's finance office. However, the PLAN is gradually transitioning to paying by direct deposit to savings accounts, especially in urban areas. Checking and credit card accounts are not widely used within the PLAN, but the use of debit cards is growing.

Transportation

The majority of PLAN personnel, including officers, do not have a driver's license, primarily because they do not own a vehicle. Personnel usually ride a bicycle, take a bus, or walk to work and have a driver from the motor pool take them to other work-related locations. More PLAN personnel are trying to purchase vehicles for personal use and to acquire government driver's licenses to be able to drive motor-pool vehicles for work-related travel. However, this has led to an increase in the number of vehicle accidents, because the drivers do not receive adequate training.

Work Conditions

To help retain personnel, the PLAN claims to have spent millions of dollars on upgrading work facilities, especially for its grassroots units located in rural and coastal areas, as well as on islands. The money is being spent on water, electricity, heating, bathing, medical, and transportation facilities.

Morale, Welfare, and Recreation

The PLAN has also focused on building and renovating morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR) facilities throughout the force. These types of facilities include soccer fields, basketball courts, indoor recreation areas, NCO and officer clubs, cultural centers, computer labs, and theaters. The units are also stocking the libraries with thousands of books of all types. To help PLAN personnel communicate better with their families, the PLAN and some local telecommunication companies help arrange for free telephones and video conferencing.

Family Member Employment

Unlike US Navy bases that are fully integrated into the surrounding community by having personnel live in civilian housing and local civilians working on base, PLAN bases and units remain somewhat isolated from the community.

Only a few PLAN personnel live in off-base public housing. Furthermore, a high percentage of civilian personnel who work on the bases and other PLAN support facilities are spouses of PLAN officers and enlisted personnel. Having spouses work on PLAN facilities helps justify providing onbase housing for the married military members. One way the PLA as a whole has tried to help alleviate the problem of family separations for officers stationed in rural areas that have minimal employment opportunities for spouses is to directly commission them as officers and then assign them to the same unit. This also allows the unit to authorize on-base housing for them.

Military Leave

The rules covering leave for officers and NCOs differ depending on their grade, marital status, and where their parents live. Each year, officers have a choice of taking regular leave or leave to visit their parents as noted below:

• Officers who choose to take leave and have less than 20 years of active duty are authorized 20 days of leave per year.
• Officers with 20 or more years are authorized 30 days.
• Officers who are not married and choose to visit their parents are authorized 20 days of leave every two years.
• Married officers who live with their spouse are authorized 30 days of annual leave to visit their parents, if the parents live in another location.
• If a married officer does not live with his spouse, he is authorized 40 days of annual leave to visit his family.

As for NCOs, grade-1 NCOs get two 20-day home visits per service period, while unaccompanied and unmarried NCOs at any of the higher grades are granted additional leave. The duration of this visit varies depending on whether the NCO is married (40 days) or unmarried (30 days). Senior NCOs (grades 5-6) who live with their spouse but away from their parents are granted one 20-day home visit every four years. This increases to 30 days once the NCO exceeds 20 years of active-duty service. NCOs performing combat tasks are not accorded vacation time or family visits.

Although PLAN personnel are authorized annual leave based on their grade and marital status, a large percentage of personnel either do not take their leave or are not allowed to take it because of the unit's daily workload and training activities. The PLAN has identified this as a morale problem and tried to solve it through various means. For example, the PLAN is trying to have its NCOs learn more than one technical skill, so they can fill in for someone who is on leave or is incapacitated during combat. In addition, some units arrange for family members or parents to stay in temporary housing during Spring Festival if the military member is not able to take leave to visit his family.

Retirement and Demobilization Issues

Enlisted Force

Prior to the revised service law in 1999, enlisted "volunteers" were demobilized and sent back to their home of record, where all retirement expenses were borne by the local government. Prior to 1999, enlisted members did not retire from the military; they were only demobilized at the end of their service. As a result, the PLAN did not have to bear the same type of retirement costs and responsibilities it did for officers. As of 2007, when a conscript or NCO is not promoted to the next rank and is demobilized from the PLA, he receives a subsidy, as well as a medical subsidy if he suffers from a chronic illness. As in the past, once the soldier returns to civilian life, all expenses related to his demobilization and job placement are paid by the local government where he resides. Because no grade-6 NCOs have yet to retire from the PLAN with a full 30 years of service, it is not clear what the retirement benefits will be.

Officer Corps

PLAN officers can either retire when they reach their mandatory retirement age or they can be demobilized if they are not promoted beyond a certain grade. In addition, they can transfer to a comparable state-controlled civilian job after they have served for a specified period but before they reach their mandatory retirement age. Each of these options entails different post-military benefits.

The PLAN has two types of retired officers. The first type, joined the PLAN before 1949, and the second type, joined after 1949. Each type receives different benefits today. PLAN officers who joined before 1949 are allowed to live in a PLAN retirement home with their family. However, as the number of these officers dwindles, those retirement homes are slowly disappearing. Depending on their grade and eligibility status, officers who joined the PLAN after 1949 can fully retire from the PLA, not take a civilian job, receive a full military pension, and remain in military housing.

Officers who are demobilized before reaching their mandatory retirement age receive a one-time compensation based on a fixed amount for each year served. The amount ranges from 1.5 months of their base salary for each year served under 10 years to 4.0 months of their base salary for each year served over 20 years. Once this money is paid, the PLAN is no longer responsible for them. Officers who choose to retire before their mandatory retirement age based on their grade and transfer to a comparable job in a governmentrun organization also receive a one-time compensation to help relocate. The amount for division leader-grade and below officers consists of two categories: relocation and living expenses. The total amount varies from seven months of their base pay to more than two years of their base pay.