You're listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Liu Yan in Beijing.
Mothers in Beijing, Shanghai and Shandong Province are expected to have more days off work after giving birth under the new national policy encouraging couples to have a second child.
The amount of additional leave ranges from 30 to 60 days as many provincial-level regions are soliciting opinions from the public before implementing new regulations this year.
The three regions followed Guangdong province, which was the first to overhaul maternity leave regulations. From Jan 1, mothers giving birth in Guangdong will have 30 more days for maternity leave. Their husband has five extra days compared with the original 10 days for them to take care of the mother and baby.
Beijing has released a draft amendment of the city's population and family planning regulation to solicit public opinion. The draft plans to cancel the seven-day wedding leave of older couples, and expand maternity leave from 98 days to 128 days for the mother. For the first time, the draft plans to give the father a 15-day-off.
Eastern China's Shandong Province is planning to increase maternity leave by 60 days. Fathers will be given seven days off.
In Shanghai, mothers will have 30 extra days off in addition to the current 98 days. Their spouses have three days off.

This is NEWS Plus Special English.
The wife of disgraced former energy chief Jiang Jiemin played a key role in his corruption. That's according to a recent report by the Beijing News.
Sixty-one-year-old Jiang is the former leader of the China National Petroleum Corporation, the country's biggest petroleum company. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in October, for accepting bribes, abusing power, and holding a large amount of property that he could not have afforded from his legitimate earnings.
Jiang used his position to seek economic gains by offering projects and job promotions, and accepted bribes valued at 14 million yuan, roughly 2.3 million U.S. dollars.
Most of the briberies were paid through his wife, Shi Kuiying, who is a retiree from a subordinate unit of the China National Petroleum Corporation. Shi was often invited to dinners to take money from bribers and then told her husband's subordinates to do things for the bribers. She could also ask her husband who would use his position for the benefits for the bribers.
An insider was quoted by the report as saying that sometimes when the bribers were refused by Jiang, they would turn to Shi instead.
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