ILO warns maternity and paternity protection gaps leave women workers vulnerable across ASEAN

Despite significant progress in expanding maternity protection across Southeast Asia, major gaps in coverage and benefit adequacy continue to leave many women without sufficient support during pregnancy and childbirth, warns International Labour Organisation (ILO). 

In a new report titled Maternity benefits in the ASEAN: Progress and Opportunities for Integrated Approaches across Social Protection and Health Systems, the ILO examined maternity-related social protection systems across ASEAN member states, assessing the range, coverage, and adequacy of income and healthcare support available to women during maternity.

The report found that while many countries in the region have strengthened maternity protection policies in recent years, access remains uneven, especially for women working in the informal economy and migrant workers who often fall outside formal social protection systems.

According to the report, better coordination between social health protection systems and maternity cash benefits could help reduce financial hardship associated with pregnancy and childbirth while improving access to quality maternal healthcare.

The study calls on governments and employers to expand maternity protection coverage to all women, strengthen financing mechanisms, and align maternity policies more closely with broader health, social protection, and care frameworks.

The report also emphasized the role of international social security standards in helping ASEAN countries build more universal and gender-responsive maternity protection systems.

“Ensuring income security and effective access to healthcare without financial hardship during maternity are essential for improving maternal and child health outcomes, preventing poverty and vulnerability, supporting women’s labour force participation, and advancing gender equality,” said Nathalie Both, Project Manager at the ILO and co-author of the report.

Both added that maternity protection should be treated as a long-term public investment rather than solely a welfare measure.

“The right to universal social protection during maternity needs to be upheld and its profile raised as an essential public investment in the future and a core component of countries’ economic, health and care policies,” she said.

Workplace inequalities limiting access to maternity protection

The report also highlighted how maternity protection is deeply tied to broader employment and workplace policies, warning that persistent gender inequalities in labour markets continue to limit women’s access to adequate maternity benefits across ASEAN.

According to the ILO, women across Asia and the Pacific remain more likely than men to work in lower-paid sectors, informal employment, self-employment, and part-time roles, all of which reduce access to social insurance schemes and maternity protections. 

The report noted that women’s labour force participation globally still trails men’s by more than 20 percentage points, while childbirth often worsens workplace inequalities through what labour economists describe as the “motherhood penalty.”

The study found that women with young children are more likely to experience interrupted careers, lower workforce participation, and reduced earnings, limiting their ability to qualify for contributory social protection schemes that provide maternity cash benefits. 

In many cases, women outside formal employment are left dependent on smaller social assistance programmes that provide significantly lower levels of support.

The ILO also warned that labour protections linked to maternity leave remain uneven across the region, particularly in sectors associated with “decent work deficits,” where legal safeguards for women workers are weak or poorly enforced.

Employer liability systems may increase discrimination risks

In several ASEAN countries, maternity benefits continue to rely partly or entirely on employer liability systems, where companies are directly responsible for paying salaries during maternity leave. The report cautioned that such systems can create incentives for discrimination against women of childbearing age in hiring and employment decisions.

“Where there is no social protection and employers are liable to pay salaries during maternity leave, they may discriminate against women of childbearing age in recruitment processes or unfairly dismiss women who become pregnant to avoid bearing the direct cost of the benefits,” the report stated.

The ILO said international labour standards instead recommend financing maternity cash benefits through broader social protection systems based on solidarity and risk pooling, reducing the burden on individual employers while protecting women’s rights at work.

Migrant and informal workers remain exposed

The report also pointed to significant legal and workplace gaps affecting migrant workers, domestic workers, self-employed women, and those in informal employment. In several ASEAN countries, these groups remain excluded from maternity protections or are covered only through voluntary schemes with low participation rates.

In Singapore, for example, some categories of migrant workers receive less generous maternity protections than citizens, while lower-skilled migrant women may lose their work permits if they become pregnant. 

Domestic workers are also excluded from maternity cash benefit laws in several countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.

Beyond maternity leave itself, the report emphasized that childcare policies and paid parental leave are essential to improving women’s long-term participation in the workforce. It warned that inadequate childcare systems often force women into precarious or lower-paying jobs to balance paid work and unpaid care responsibilities.

The ILO said stronger coordination between maternity benefits, labour protections, childcare systems, and gender equality policies would be critical to reducing workplace inequalities and supporting women’s economic inclusion across ASEAN.