A report revealed that about 85% of the working mothers surveyed felt that their parenthood had affected their career “in a significant way”. Over 30% of them said that they went through a “long period of mental distress” before announcing their pregnancy at work, and 35% said their bosses immediately started looking for their replacements after learning about their pregnancy.

While Chinese women may no longer sacrifice their careers for their husbands, they are still expected to do so for their children. The study found that nearly half of the mothers left the labor force for at least one year after giving birth, among whom roughly 20% ended up becoming stay-at-home moms. When asked about the impact of motherhood on their identities and life goals, nearly 35% said that the most profound change was how they started to balance between family and work.

The adjustment, however, is not always by choice. Responding to a question about the distribution of child¬care labor in their home, almost 40% of the working mothers said that their husbands basically spent no time on parenting.” Moreover, over half of the husbands didn't use up their paternity leave(陪产假), whereas about 21 percent never took it at all.

Another key finding from the survey was that although it's illegal for Chinese companies to ask a woman about family plans, many employers still do. The unlawful yet prevalent practice has been a main factor influencing women's decisions about timing of motherhood. The survey showed that about 40% of the childless respondents delayed parenthood because of “the time it would take,” which they thought would                                        have a negative impact on their promotion opportunities.

In theory, there has never been a better time than now for working mothers in China to shine. Faced with an aging population and shrinking workforce, Chinese officials encourage Chinese women to have babies while working at the same time.

Around 3, 000 school-based health centers, which are often partnerships between school districts and local community health organizations and hospitals, bring services to children who need them most and who have the greatest risk of falling behind in school because their health needs aren’t satisfied.

Delivering health care through schools has been shown to improve kids’ physical well-being and educational outcomes. A 2005 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that after health centers opened in U. S. public schools, their students’ risk of asthma (哮喘) went down 2.4-fold, and their trips to the emergency room for asthma decreased by 33. 5 percent. Other studies have shown that clinics in schools can increase vaccination rates among students and reduce mental health problems. On the education front, kids who use such centers have improved attendance and grades, are more likely to be promoted to the next grade and are overall more prepared for college. Based on all of this evidence, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) recently recommended school-based health centers as a key strategy to advance health equity—that is, to reduce the access differences that exist between wealthier populations and everyone else.

Yet most school communities that could desperately use such clinics lack them. In 2021 Congress gave $5 million to support new and expanded services at school-based health centers. That money funded 25 facilities一yet the program got more-than 300 applications. And fewer than half of U. S. states currently fund school health centers. The clinics still need stable funding for operating expenses, including hiring well-trained staff.

Getting kids the care they need has always made sense, and it’s more urgent than ever. The time is right to expand school-based health centers to all under-served students.

Every order of takeout comes with a side of single-use plastics and each plastic fork. knife, spoon and straw-whether or not you wanted it or used it-ends up in the trash.

New research found that 139 million metric tons of single-use plastic waste was generated in 2021-six million metric tons more single-use plastics compared to 2019. A hunger for takeout meals during the pandemic contributed to the surge.

An estimated 60% of Americans order takeout or delivery at least once a week and online ordering is growing 300% faster than in-house dining; that means millions of single-use plastic utensils (餐具) are going out with every order.

New laws aim to address the problem. Some of the recent bills are thanks to The National Reuse Network, part of the environmental nonprofit Upstream, which launched a national Skip the Stuff campaign to work out policies that require restaurants to include single-use plastic utensils, straws, and napkins only when customers request them.

The bills also require meal delivery and online apps like Uber Eats, GrubHub and Door Dash to add single-use extras to their menus; customers can choose the items and quantities to have them included in the order. Customers that don’t order the single-use plastics won’t receive them. The goal of the bills is to reduce the 40 billion plastic utensils sent to the landfill (垃圾填埋场) every year.

“Most of the time, people are taking food home or to their offices where there are reusable utensils so these utensils wind up in a drawer or get thrown out,” says Alexis Goldsmith, national organizing director for a nationwide project Beyond Plastics. “Some people do need utensils, but for the most part, they’re not needed.”

To date, Skip the Stuff bills have been passed in several cities, including Denver, Washington, D.C. and Chicago, California and Washington state passed statewide bills that make single-use plastic “accessories” available with takeout orders only upon request.

Organizations like Upstream, Beyond plastics and NRDC have created toolkits to help additional communities launch their own Skip the Stuff campaigns.