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July 29, 2014

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

To hire care or not, that is the question

By Wu Huixin | July 29, 2014, Tuesday | Print Edition

DEMAND for maternity maids known as yuesao has risen in Hangzhou, and their salaries have skyrocketed.

Some families believe a maternity maid is instrumental in caring for a newborn and postpartum mother, so price is no object. Others, however, are skeptical because they hear stories of agencies exaggerating the qualifications of yuesao or families complaining about maternity maids who are lazy and don’t know what they are doing. Yuesao counter that the job is very demanding because families are so picky and newborns wake up frequently every night, meaning they get little sleep.

Agnes Yang, 29, is expecting a baby in August. She said she went to a housekeeping agency seven months ago and booked a maternity maid for 4,500 yuan (US$726) per month. Last month the maid told Yang her monthly wage had increased to 7,000 yuan, almost half of her family’s monthly income.

“It is so expensive,” Yang said. “It makes me regret waiting to have a baby. I had no choice but to turn down the yuesao.

“After discussing the issue with my family, we decided to let my mother take care of me while my mother-in-law would look after the baby.”

Salaries have soared so much that some yuesao are now getting up to 15,000 yuan a month and demand seems unlikely to drop.

In the first 11 months of 2013, 56,700 babies were born in Hangzhou, according to the Hangzhou Family Planning Commission. In the first half of this year, 13,783 couples have applied to have a second child since the central government allowed families to have two children if one parent is an only child.

Also, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners believe a woman needs to follow a strict regimen for at least 30 days after giving birth or risk ruining her health for the rest of her life. The regimen is called zuo yuezi, or sitting the month. A yuesao, literally month sister-in-law, helps moms recover from child birth and take care of the newborn.

Formerly, a woman’s mom and mother-in-law helped out, but in recent years yuesao have once again become popular since more families are in good financial shape. They also believe it will be better for mother and baby.

A manager of a housekeeping company in Zhaohui Block, surnamed Zhang, said demand is indeed rising.

“In order to meet the demand after the announcement of the amended family planning policy, we offer some yuesao with professional caring skills for 15,000 yuan per month,” he said. “A regular yuesao can now earn between 5,000 yuan and 10,000 yuan a month depending on experience.”

Li Guifen is looking for an experienced yuesao for her daughter-in-law, who is pregnant and will give birth to her second child next year. But after looking around at several housekeeping companies, Li now isn’t sure what she will do.

“When my first grandchild was born in 2010, I hired a yuesao at 3,000 yuan per month,” she said. “The price has gone up so much.”

According to www.ganji.com, a classifieds website, a yuesao can earn more in Hangzhou than in any other city — including Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou — in the country.

However, the cost doesn’t scare off some customers who believe a high salary equates to better service.

Charles Chen, a Fujian Province native who runs a company in Hangzhou, said he spent 30,000 yuan for two yuesao to take care of his wife and baby for a month in April.

“Yuesao deserve that high pay,” Chen said. “They were responsible for the daily nursing and cleaning of my baby and cooking high protein and nutritious meals for my wife.

“They also do housework to make my home tidy and neat. That was really good for my wife’s postpartum recovery.”

However, not all moms are satisfied with the work of their yuesao.

“My yuesao was so lazy and bad tempered,” writes a poster identified as MINGYA0281 on social website www.19lou.com. “The housekeeping agency said she was adequate with more than seven years of experience, but I didn’t see any of that. I dismissed her a week later.”

Such stories make some mothers think twice, or be extra careful when selecting a maternity maid.

According to a report by Zhejing Online, an official news portal of Zhejiang Province, only 10 percent of Hangzhou yuesao have professional certificates issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Meanwhile, to attract more clients, some housekeeping companies give employees pompous titles like “gold medal yuesao” or “special grade yuesao.” This ends up doing more harm to the overall market since it confuses potential clients who are unsure how to go about picking a qualified yuesao.

Last year, the Hangzhou Housekeeping Service Industry Association suggested a maternity maid should have professional certificates before taking on jobs to look after mothers and newborns. It has had little effect. The market is still dominated by yuesao with no quantifiable qualifications.

Some maternity maids think certification is impractical and a waste of time.

“Every day I am so busy that I cannot get ample sleep, where am I going to find the time for qualification tests and training,” said Wang Fang, who has been a maternity maid for more than five years. “I’m changing diapers, bathing and massaging the infant and taking care of the mother during the day. Then I have to wake up every two hours at night to feed the infant.”

Although the profession still lacks standards and a code of conduct, it appears unlikely demand will diminish any time soon, especially among high-income families. But for ordinary income families, hiring a maternity maid is expensive.

According to a Zhejiang Online survey, more than 80 percent of respondents said their monthly salary is lower than a maternity maid. This high cost is making some moms take a more Western approach — doing it themselves.

“I quit my job to look after my daughter after she was born,” said a woman surnamed Luo. “I think caring for my baby from the start helps cultivate a strong bond between us. No one can replace a mother’s care.”

Hangzhou


 

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