Cabinet passes draft amendments for military parental leave
ROC Central News Agency
2019/05/30 14:52:26
Taipei, May 30 (CNA) In its latest effort to boost Taiwan's fertility rate, the Executive Yuan passed two draft amendments Thursday designed to make it easier for military officers to apply for parental leave, including halving the minimum length of service required to permit such leave.
Currently, Article 9-1 of the Act of Assignment for Officers And Non-commissioned Officers of the Armed Forces stipulates that military officers can apply for leave without pay to care for children under the age of 3 if they have been in service for at least a year.
If passed by lawmakers, the draft amendment will cut the minimum length of service to just six months, allowing more military officers to be able to stay home to take care of their children.
In addition, military officers will also be eligible for parental leave during the trial period of cohabitation with a child under the age of 3 whom they plan to adopt, the bill states.
Meanwhile, another draft amendment to the Act of Merit for Officers and Non-commissioned Officers of the Armed Forces was also passed to protect the rights of military officers applying for parental leave.
The bill is designed to revise Article 2 of the act, which states that an evaluation will only be made on a military officer's job performance if he or she has served for more than six months consecutively in a given year.
The draft amendment removes the "consecutive" requirement, giving greater flexibility to military officers applying for leave to take care of their children or to accompany their spouses on overseas missions.
According to the Ministry of National Defense's preliminary estimation, the draft amendments are expected to benefit between 800 and 1,000 military officers per year, said Pai Chieh-lung (白捷隆), director-general of the ministry's Department of Resource Planning.
Deputy Minister of National Defense Shen Yi-ming (沈一鳴) said the amendments are part of the government's efforts to encourage people to have more children. He also stressed that the ministry will not be biased against military officers who have applied for parental leave when evaluating their job performance.
In the U.S.-based World Population Review's latest Fertility Rate by Country report, Taiwan ranked bottom among 200 countries, with a total fertility rate of 1.218 children per woman.
Japan and South Korea occupied the 179th and 194th spots with a total fertility rate of 1.478 and 1.323 children per woman, respectively.
(By Stacy Hsu)
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