Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative candidates yesterday called for the National Child Care Policy for Ages 0-6 to be extended to “ages minus-one to six,” to includes subsidies and extended maternity leave for pregnant women.
The legislative candidates held a news conference in Taipei to unveil their campaign platform, which includes increased subsidies, pre- and post-birth psychiatric consultations and extended paid pregnancy leave to encourage young people to have children.
Current policies on alleviating sub-replacement fertility and the low birthrate are focused on giving birth and raising children, KMT legislative candidate Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) said.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
However, they fail to provide an incentive for young people to have children, Lee said.
She proposed that care for women who are planning to become mothers be extended to the pregnancy phase, touting the slogan: “The state raises your minus-one to six-year-old child.”
She said that women who have been pregnant for three months should receive a monthly stipend of NT$8,000 until the child is born, and said that she would push to extend paid pregnancy leave from eight weeks to 14, with the additional six weeks to be funded by the government.
KMT legislative candidate Lee Min-hsuan (李明璇) said that the government should provide NT$10,000 pre- and post-birth consultation subsidies to help ensure that the mother, child and family are stable.
The government should “reward” hospitals that have purchased equipment or conducted research that would help pregnant women who are of advanced maternal age or hospitals that provide cross-department care for mothers with high-risk pregnancies, she said.
She also said that Taiwan should emulate the UK and establish regulations to reduce the wage gap.
KMT legislator-at-large candidate Chen Ching-huy (陳菁徽) said the government should provide pregnant mothers with a one-time anomaly scan, or a level II ultrasound, to ensure preventive treatment for congenital anomalies.
The government should also increase the subsidy for those who have fertility issues and are attempting for a second time to have a child from NT$60,000 to NT$80,000, she said.
Women aged 30 to 40 who want to freeze their eggs should be subsidized, she said, adding that they should receive NT$20,000 for the first year, which would drop to NT$2,000 for each of the next five years.
KMT legislative candidate Huang Chien-hao (黃健豪) proposed increasing birth subsidies to NT$50,000 for the first child, NT$65,000 for the second and NT$80,000 for the third.
Families with children that do not own their own home should be given priority for renting social welfare housing, and be given a subsidy of NT$5,000 per month until their child’s sixth birthday, Huang said.
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