Chinese toymaker Pop Mart cops PR flak for asking female job applicants plans on children

Chinese toymaker Pop Mart apologised after receiving widespread anger from the public as it asked female job applicants about their plans to have children, and if so, when. This question sparked a public outcry on Weibo with the accusation of making money from women while exploiting them. 

Netizens on Weibo said that employers would worry about how a female employee can balance her life and work after giving birth to two or three children.

In response to the public anger, Pop Mart said some of its branches did not follow internal policies when asking this question. On its official Weibo account, the HK-listed Pop Mart said, "As a company whose consumers are majority-female, we always respect women very much." Currently, women account for 68.8% of Pop Mart's total workforce and nearly three-quarters of new hires in the past six months. According to its website, POP MART has offices in major Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Dongguan exceeding 1500 employees who take charge of the physical stores, product design, intellectual property licenses, app development, and exhibition management. 

Pop Mart is renowned for turning blind-box toys into a mainstream sensation in China. However, the news broke out after the Chinese authority rolled out a major shift in its family planning policy which allows couples to give birth to three children instead of two. Some of the notable brands it partners with include Sanrio’s Hello Kitty, Gudetama, Disney, Pokemon, Sesame Street, Kakao Friends and many others. 

Such change is aimed at tackling the fall of birth rates and the rise of the number of retirees in the country. According to a recent BBC report, the average annual growth rate was 0.53% over the past 10 years. This has resulted in Beijing hoping to boost measures for couples to have more babies. Meanwhile, in 2015, China ditched its one-child policy after 35 years.