Association calls for more paid leave to care for family

By Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Labor regulations should be reformed to allow workers to take up to six months of paid leave to arrange for long-term care of family members, the Taiwan Association of Family Caregivers said yesterday.

Arranging for long-term care can be an extremely chaotic process, as families face choices such as doing the caretaking on their own or hiring a foreign caregiver, association president Chen Chen-fen (陳正芬) said.

“Families need time to hold discussions before making a decision,” she said, adding that an average of 180,000 people leave the workforce annually to provide care for family members.

“We hope that the government can provide a kind of work insurance, allowing workers to continue drawing salaries while making arrangements [for long-term care] to help us hold on to much of this lost labor,” she said.

Workers are currently only allowed seven days off to make arrangements for long-term care for a family member.

“If these people can be kept in the workforce without sacrificing care for their family members, their income can be stabilized, which can help keep them out of poverty,” she said.

Funding could come from the Ministry of Labor’s Employment Security Fund, she said, but added that the association was not sure how much funding would be needed.

She said the fund could also be used to provide one day a week “breathing space” home nursing service to families that employ foreign workers.

The fund is based on levies imposed on families employing foreign workers, who are currently ineligible for the government-provided “breathing space” service.

Chen said the group supports calls for the government to begin providing subsidies for institutional care of the severely disabled, a key demand of a Sunday rally of more than 1,000 people on Ketagalan Boulevard, as the government considers reforms to address the nation’s rapidly aging population.