BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- China is moving to improve protection and support for its more than 30 million domestic workers under a newly introduced 19-measure package.
The measures seek to strengthen workplace protections and expand social security coverage for domestic workers, many of whom are rural migrants employed in cities.
Demand for elderly care, childcare and housekeeping has surged amid China's aging population and changing family needs. The domestic services sector is now estimated to be worth more than 1 trillion yuan (about 147 billion U.S. dollars). Yet jobs in the sector often remain unstable and offer insufficient protections.
Against this backdrop, the new measures, jointly released by several government authorities earlier this month, underscore the underappreciated role that insurance can potentially play in promoting the healthy development of China's household service industry.
Part of the plan is to encourage insurance companies to develop products that protect both domestic workers and their employers against risks of personal injury and property loss, while clarifying liability for damages that occur during services.
Such insurance products would be able to cover expenses arising from incidents such as domestic workers being injured while performing household cleaning, or accidentally damaging their employers' valuable property.
According to financial scholar Shen Yujing, the measures will help address major obstacles facing China's household service industry in achieving "high-quality development."
"The package of measures in general responds to growing public demand for an adequate supply of household service professionals, as China undergoes profound demographic changes," said Shen, a senior research fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China.
Another measure designed to enhance protections for the workforce is the expansion of social insurance coverage for domestic workers, many of whom are freelancers. The new measures encourage on-demand home service platforms to help freelance domestic workers enroll in the country's basic pension and medical insurance by providing subsidies.
The National Healthcare Security Administration will also encourage local governments to extend maternity insurance coverage to eligible freelance workers, a benefit that has traditionally been unavailable to self-employed individuals, according to Wen Siyao, an official with the administration, at a press conference last week.
"The policy will help address the lack of social security protections for freelance domestic workers, therefore improving the stability of labor supply in the household service market," said Gao Baohua, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce.
Government efforts to transform fragmented freelance domestic workforce into a more stable labor supply date back several years. Policy guidelines on household services issued in 2019 and 2023 both called for home service providers to shift from intermediaries to employers that hire domestic workers under labor contracts and make social insurance contributions for them.
The Chinese government aims to make direct employment by household service companies a mainstream model in the industry by 2035, with major cities like Beijing and Shanghai set to take the lead. At the end of last year, Shanghai released the outline of a three-year plan to promote such a model, and designated 16 companies as pilot employers under the plan, offering them policy support in fields such as tax, subsidies and financing.
Another focus of China's plan for the sustainable development of the industry is requiring household service providers, upon becoming employers, to offer more professional skills training for their domestic workers.
According to China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the country will later develop a set of national occupational standards for domestic workers. Notably, the newly released measures also encourage domestic workers to receive training in long-term care to meet the surging demand for at-home elderly care services.
Under the measures, the government will support household service companies in providing services that are included in the country's long-term care insurance -- a scheme that has been piloted in several regions for years and is expected to expand nationwide by 2028.
China aims to establish long-term care insurance as another pillar of the country's social insurance system, like the basic health insurance and pension insurance, with individuals and employers jointly contributing to a mutual fund that pays for long-term care services for the elderly and people with disability at home.
The new measure means that household service companies will become qualified service providers under the government's long-term care insurance program.
"This will open up new business opportunities for household service companies and also encourage them to train more professional caregivers," said Li Jun, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation. ■
