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Several Chinese companies have been accused of introducing a controversial and illegal new step to their recruitment process: Pregnancy tests.
Prosecutors in Nantong, a city in the province of Jiangsu, investigated 16 companies which they said had 168 candidates take pregnancy tests as part of physical pre-employment exams, according to a report by state-run outlet Procuratorial Daily, cited by CNN and South China Morning Post (SCMP).
The Tongzhou district launched the investigation into the unnamed companies earlier this year after being tipped off by a public litigation group, the report said.
Prosecutors said they looked into a physical exam center and two hospitals, the latter of which reported that the women were only given vague verbal warnings and no written confirmation about the tests, the publication said.
In one instance, a woman who was tested and found to be pregnant was not initially hired, according to staff and insurance records cited by the prosecutors in the report.
However, the report added that the woman was later hired and given compensation after the unnamed company was warned about its behavior.
"We can speculate from this evidence that the pregnancy tests were required by these companies, and it had violated women's rights to equal work opportunities," the prosecutors said, according to SCMP.
The report didn't mention whether any companies involved had been fined. As CNN and SCMP reported, Chinese companies can be fined up to 50,000 yuan, or around $6,900, for gender discrimination.
Business Insider could not verify the reports.
The reported anti-pregnancy strategy contradicts the Chinese government's push for women to have more children amid falling birth rates.
The birth rate has fallen so much in recent years that some hospitals are giving up on delivering babies.
The country's national birth rate dropped from 6.77 births per 1,000 people in 2022 to a record low of 6.39 births per 1,000 people in 2023.
Meanwhile, the number of maternity hospitals fell from 807 in 2020 to 793 in 2021, according to official data.
As Business Insider previously reported, the shift can be attributed partly to evolving views of Chinese women, who are prioritizing financial freedom and saving for their retirement over starting a family.
"Let's face it, having a child is like owning an investment with no guaranteed return for at least 18 years," Chen, a Chinese venture capital analyst, told BI in February.
"There's just so much to explore in this world, so much to do in this very short life that I don't see myself taking on the responsibility of having children," Huang, a content creator, told BI.
However, according to Human Rights Watch, those who are choosing to have children are facing discrimination.
It said that after China scrapped its one-child policy several years ago, the majority of women surveyed by various Chinese companies and women's groups said they had been subjected to discrimination.
"Numerous women have described, on social media, to the Chinese media, or in court documents, their experiences being asked about their childbearing status during job interviews, being forced to sign contracts pledging not to get pregnant, and being demoted or fired for being pregnant," it said.
