Employees who pay voluntary insurance can receive maternity benefits.

The draft revised Law on Social Insurance, which is being consulted for the first time, adds maternity benefits to voluntary social insurance participants. The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, the agency in charge of drafting the bill, proposes that female workers who give birth and husbands who are paying social insurance whose wives give birth are entitled to this benefit.

In case only the mother pays social insurance and unfortunately passes away after giving birth, the father or the person directly raising the child will receive maternity allowance. Funding from the state budget.

Cán bộ cơ quan Bảo hiểm xã hội tư vấn cho người dân Hà Nội về chính sách BHXH tự nguyện, tháng 5/2022. Ảnh: Hồng Chiêu

The voluntary social insurance policy in Vietnam has been implemented since 2008, for working-age workers in the informal sector, without any relationship or labor contract. After 15 years of implementation, the country has nearly 1.46 million workers participating, covering 3% of the working-age population.

The drafting agency expects that adding maternity benefits is the first step to gradually improve the regime for workers in this area, attracting more participants.

Since 2018, the government has supported 10% of the contribution based on monthly income equal to the rural poverty line, encouraging provinces and cities to allocate more budget to support workers. From 2022, voluntary social insurance contributions will increase, with the lowest level being VND330,000. The highest state support is VND99,000 for poor households.

Voluntary social insurance currently has two beneficiary regimes: retirement and death, without maternity, illness, occupational disease or work accident like compulsory social insurance.

According to VnExpress