Single mothers in China face Catch-22 when they apply for maternity benefits, but this woman is unbowed

Although China has relaxed its reproductive restrictions, unmarried women still face obstacles to becoming single mums – including having to buy sperm abroad

Once they give birth, contradictory laws stop them obtaining maternity insurance and government subsidies, as one mother’s court battle showed

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One woman’s failed fight to obtain employer-provided maternity insurance in China highlights the struggles that unmarried women with children still face in the country. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 8:15pm, 22 Nov 2020Updated: 8:29pm, 22 Nov 2020

For Chris Zou, a three-year odyssey through the Chinese court system has left her exactly where she started: tasked with raising her three-year-old son without government help.

Zou did not marry her son’s father but in 2016 decided to keep her child anyway. In 2017, the single mother tried and failed to obtain employer-provided maternity insurance because she could not provide a marriage licence.

Married couples in China are entitled to maternity insurance and to subsidies through a programme that provides financial relief to women after their children are born.

When the local government rejected her complaint about the insurance, she took it to court. Zou spent the next three years fighting her case, but the rulings consistently went against her. The Chinese prosecutors’ office denied her final complaint on October 28.

Chris Zou did not marry her son’s father but in 2016 decided to keep her child anyway. Photo: courtesy of Chris Zou

Despite the outcome, Zou believes the lawsuits were worth pursuing because she thinks she has helped reveal some of the contradictory laws and regulatory hurdles faced by single mothers in China.