Nearly All Young Mothers Quit Jobs After Maternal Leave

The vast majority of women who take maternity leave return to their old jobs for only a short time of up to three months, an alarming study finds.

This could be partly due to job-related stress and discrimination in the early days after their return, but businesses suspect that many women simply take advantage of a paid maternity leave and then hang around for some weeks before becoming full-time mothers or taking a job elsewhere.

Between January and May this year, a whopping 96 percent of the 1,382 women quit their jobs within three months after their return from maternity leave, according to the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

The proportion reaches a whopping 98 percent if those who quit within six months are taken into account. In other words, practically no young mothers return to their old jobs for long.

Often they are not welcomed back after maternity leave. Statistics show that the longer the maternity leave, the quicker the young mothers quit. This suggests that the longer they are away, the more difficult it is be for them to fit back in.

But others simply use their maternity leave to look around for better jobs. "Some never return or just give a verbal notice and start work in a rival company after a year of paid leave," a human resources manager in a small company complained.