At a glance
- On 25 September 2025, Shanghai amended its regulation on protecting the rights and interests of the elderly, which took effect on 1 November 2025.
- The amended regulation requires employers to grant paid leave when an employee’s parent or grandparent, as primary caregiver, is hospitalised.
- Employees are entitled to up to five working days of paid leave per year if they have siblings, or up to seven days if they are an only child under the one-child policy.
- Employers must maintain full salary during the leave, and refusal to grant it may lead to labour complaints or arbitration claims.
- Employers should update their leave policies promptly and address unresolved issues such as age limits, geographic scope, and qualifying hospitalisation.
On 25 September 2025, the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress adopted the 'Decision on Amending the Shanghai Municipality Regulation on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly (2025)' (Regulation). Among other things, the amended Regulation, which took effect on 1 November 2025, requires every employer in Shanghai to grant paid leave to an employee when their parent (or grandparent in situations where the employee is the primary caregiver) is hospitalised.
Elder-care leave (Leave)
Statutory entitlement to days off
Under the amended Regulation, when either parent is admitted to hospital for medical treatment due to illness, an employee is entitled, in every calendar year, to:
- up to five working days of paid Leave accumulatively if they are not an only child; or
- up to seven working days of paid Leave accumulatively if they are an only child born during the period when China promoted the 'one-couple-one-child' policy.
The amended Regulation is silent on this specifically, but it can be understood from the word 'accumulatively' that the days may be taken:
- in a single continuous block;
- in separate instalments during one hospital admission; or
- piecemeal across multiple admissions occurring at different times in the same calendar year.
Who is eligible
Under PRC law, caring for an elderly person is a legal obligation of the grown-up child(ren) of the elderly person. However, others may assume this legal obligation in certain situations.
Under the amended Regulations, the Leave is granted to the statutory primary caregiver of a hospitalised 'elderly person', so it includes an employee's parent or another elderly person for whom the employee has legal caregiving obligations. For example, a son- or daughter-in-law, if the spouse is deceased and the employee has in fact assumed the support obligation, or a grandchild if the elderly person’s child(ren) are deceased or unable to support the elderly person.
Salary maintenance
The amended Regulation also makes it clear that during any period of the Leave, the employee must receive the same remuneration that he or she would have earned for normal full attendance. The rule aligns the Leave with other statutory family-related leaves, such as parental leave and child-care leave.
Enforcement
It is mandatory for employers to grant the Leave. Accordingly, an employer’s refusal to grant the Leave would constitute a breach of statutory duty, actionable under the PRC labour law despite the absence of an express penalty clause under the amended Regulation itself. Specifically, an affected employee may:
- lodge an administrative complaint with the local labour authority for the employer’s non-compliance; or
- file a claim with the competent labour arbitration commission for damages resulting from the employer’s wrongful refusal - such as payments to third-party caregivers - or for withheld wages in respect of leave that was unlawfully refused yet nevertheless taken, etc.
Having said that, how enforcement will play out remains to be seen.
Open Issues
The amended Regulation leaves many practical questions open, including the following main issues:
Minimum age of the parent
The amended Regulation does not state how old a parent must be for his or her working child to be eligible for the Leave. Under PRC law, anyone aged 60 or above is an 'elderly person', so a reasonable reading is that the parent must have reached 60. Until the Shanghai authorities issue clarifying guidance, an employer may lawfully deny the Leave if the hospitalised parent is 59 or younger.
Geographic reach
The amended Regulation protects 'the rights and interests of the elderly within the administrative area of Shanghai'. There is scope to limit eligibility to only parents who are hospitalised in Shanghai or have a Shanghai Hukou (household-registration). This allows employers to retain discretion with respect to applications for elder care leaves outside of the above definition to prevent abuse.
Hospitalised for medical treatment due to illness
The amended Regulations do not specify what qualifies as being ‘hospitalised for medical treatment due to illness’. This leaves scope for interpretation, such as whether an overnight stay for routine check-ups, diagnostic tests, physical conditioning, cosmetic procedures, or broader therapeutic or wellbeing treatments for a parent would entitle an employee to take Leave.
What does this mean for employers?
Employers in Shanghai
With the Leave taken effect recently, Shanghai employers who have yet to update their employee handbook or leave policy to include the new leave category are recommended to do so immediately. The revised document should cover eligibility, the application / approval process, required documentation, and clarify the above open issues and any other issues that the amended Regulation leaves unresolved, such as whether cash out of the Leave is allowed, whether the Leave can be offset by contractual annual leave, and whether entitlement for the remainder of 2025 should be pro-rated. To be legally binding, the updated handbook or policy should also complete the statutory consultation and publication procedures required under PRC law.
Employers in other locations in China
Over the past few years, the majority of locations in China have already introduced their own versions of elder-care leave. Some restrict the leave to only children, while others, like Shanghai, extend it to both only children and their siblings, though the former still receive more days. For example, Beijing gives an only child 'up to ten working days of paid elder-care leave per calendar year when the child’s parent(s) need care.' Guangzhou and Shenzhen, both in Guangdong province, grant only children five calendar days each calendar year to care for a parent aged 60 or older, and raise the entitlement to a maximum of fifteen calendar days if the parent is hospitalised.
As China’s population ages and employees become more rights-conscious, requests for elder-care leave, especially in Beijing, Shanghai and other first-tier cities, are expected to rise. Multinational companies in China are therefore advised to review and update their leave policies, incorporating statutory requirements and supplying clarificatory provisions which protect the employer from unnecessary dispute and abuse of the entitlements where the legislation is silent, so as to ensure a prompt and compliant response to the anticipated increase in leave requests.
