ChinAI #288: The Art of the Strategic Pregnancy
Greetings from a world where…
people talk to each other like chickens speaking with ducks [鸡同鸭讲]
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Feature Translation: People at large tech companies, strategically preparing for pregnancy
Context: “In the past, in order to get promotions and raises, we didn't dare to have children, as we were afraid that getting pregnant and having children would affect our career development. Now, in order to keep our jobs, we are considering strategic pregnancies,” one poster comments on a social network. This week’s feature translation (original Chinese from Perpetual Light Studio[极昼工作室] covers this phenomenon of “strategic pregnancies” [战略性怀孕], which has gained momentum in the past two years. From the article:
Searching through a certain social platform dominated by female users (Xiaohongshu, I think), more than 25,000 notes are about “whether you will be laid off after a strategic pregnancy.” Someone posted a "practical guide" to share how she safely avoided three waves of layoffs in large companies from pregnancy to maternity leave, as her department went from more than a dozen people to only herself.
Key Passages: Our story begins with Yuanyi Ma, a 30-year old in her fifth year in the game development industry. In her prime, she wants to rise, but there are no vacancies in management positions, and her company has started to subtly scale back expenses and benefits (e.g., the cafeteria napkins have been replaced with cheaper brands).
Ma’s strategic pregnancy plan: 1) get pregnant in the second quarter of the year, 2) disclose her pregnancy to the firm only after she gets her bonus, 3) make sure the third trimester of her pregnancy coincides with the timing of the national and provincial civil service exams, 4) after giving birth, continue to review during maternity leave and participate in other exams in the first half of the following year, 5) finish breastfeeding and then catch up with the recruitment season for other positions.
The article continues: “She did it. She had pregnancy reactions in the first three months, tried to hold back when she wanted to vomit, and went to the bathroom quickly after meetings. When she announced her pregnancy, she was relieved. Another colleague who joined the company at the same time seemed to be inspired and went to skip rope every night after getting off work. Mai knew that skipping rope is conducive to ovulation.”
In mid-September of last year, Yue Du and her husband had only been married for two months when she received a layoff notice. Luckily, someone in management had tipped them off in advance, so the young couple decided to get pregnant as soon as possible to buy some time with human resources (HR).
Negotiations with HR delayed her firing, which allowed her to find another job at an investment fund company. Unfortunately, that company also struggled, so she had to turn to side hustles, such as audiobook reader and part-time auditor. The only one that stuck involved selling insurance policies and assisting doctors to help out-of-town patients.
Du’s husband noticed that she had become very tight about money. “He changed from buying ribs from Meituan to going to the vegetable market to compare prices.”
Some HR professionals advise against undertaking a strategic pregnancy to keep one’s job, as it only brings a short-term sense of job security. Upon return from maternity leave, female employees sometimes struggle to secure promotions and salary increases. The article cites a recent “Survey Report on Fertility Intentions of the Suitable-Age Population,” jointly published by statistics bureaus in various areas, which cites “inadequate implementation of maternity allowances, holidays, and employment guarantees” and “worries about the impact on personal career development” as two of the main obstacles to having children.
Ma continued to prepare for exams during and after her pregnancy. She took the national civil service exam two weeks before giving birth. After just two weeks of rest after a C-section, she continued her studies, doing math problems in bed while breastfeeding. During her six-month maternity leave, she took four exams and applied to posts at other companies.
One month after returning to work, she received an offer to become a teacher at a vocational school. After taking up the post, in order to better her chances of future promotions, Ma chose to be a head teacher, so she was busy every day with teaching plan and lesson preparations.
The article concludes: “One night at eleven o'clock, several girls in the class had a conflict in the dormitory, just as Ma’s daughter had a fever and had to go to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, she kept communicating with the students' parents, teachers on duty, class leaders, and the students involved. The phone was silent only after she got the medicine for her daughter. Lying in bed at one o'clock in the night, she turned on her phone and sent messages to the parents one by one to comfort them again. ‘No job is the best, they are all cities under siege.’ Ma sighed.”
For more stories of strategic pregnancies, see FULL TRANSLATION: People at large tech companies, strategically preparing for pregnancy
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Thank you for reading and engaging.
These are Jeff Ding's (sometimes) weekly translations of Chinese-language musings on AI and related topics. Jeff is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University.
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