With the Chinese New Year holiday concluded, many of us face the dreaded Saturday tomorrow, which is one of the most unwelcome workdays in all of China – a make-up working day. While this has become an accepted aspect of working life here, have you ever wondered how these make-up working days originated? An article from The Beijing News (新京报) provides some background on this topic.
**1949: The Beginning**
The origins date back to the mid-20th century. Following the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the State Council mandated a total of seven days off for four annual holidays: New Year's Day (one-day holiday), Spring Festival (three-day holiday), Labor Day (one-day holiday), and National Day (two-day holiday).
**1999: Golden Weeks & Make-up Days**
For 50 years, this structure remained largely unchanged until 1997, when the Southeast Asian financial crisis severely impacted China's economy. In an effort to stimulate the economy, a strategy was implemented to increase domestic spending on travel and leisure. By 1999, a revised holiday scheme was introduced which kept the three-day Spring Festival holiday and extended Labor Day and National Day to three days each. To offer people a full week of travel while still only providing the standard three days off, a solution was devised: add two extra weekdays off, enabling an extended seven-day break, but require that the two days be compensated by working weekends before or after the holiday.
For instance, during this year’s Chinese New Year, the schedule shows eight consecutive days off (Jan 28-Feb 4). This includes a weekend (Feb 1-2), which most people already have off, while the Sunday before the holiday (Jan 26) was a workday, and the upcoming Saturday (Feb 8) is also a workday. Thus, what appears as an eight-day holiday actually equates to four workdays off when you consider the make-up days.
This approach indeed contributed to economic growth by encouraging consumption, but employers had to contend with the financial implications of paying wages for those days off. For context, data from the Ministry of Human Resources in 2019 indicated that employers spent over RMB 40 billion in wages for each holiday day.
This year has seen a new adjustment with two additional public holidays added; now, Chinese New Year’s Eve and the day after Labor Day (May 2) are both public holidays. Thankfully, no new make-up days have been introduced to compensate for these additional holidays. Hooray!
**2007: Back to Tradition**
In 2007, there was another revision of holiday policy to re-integrate traditional Chinese holidays. However, authorities expressed concerns about excessive leisure time, leading to a compromise: the Qing Ming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival were each included as public holidays with one day off, while the Labor Day holiday returned to a single day off from the three-day period (though, as mentioned, it has now been updated to two days).
Complicating holiday planning is the fact that these traditional holidays are determined by the lunar calendar, which means the dates shift annually in the Gregorian calendar.
This leads to some complexities:
- If a holiday lands on a Monday or Friday, a natural three-day weekend occurs with no further changes.
- If it falls on a Tuesday, Monday is given as a day off, resulting in a weekend make-up workday for three consecutive days off.
- If it falls on a Thursday, Friday is a day off, and similarly, a weekend make-up workday is added.
- If it falls on a Saturday or Sunday, an extra day is provided, creating a three-day weekend.
- Lastly, if it is on a Wednesday, the only day off is that Wednesday with no additional benefits.
Changes to China’s holiday calendar have indeed yielded positive economic outcomes. For instance, during the Labor Day holiday when it was a full Golden Week (from 1999 to 2007), national tourism income rose from RMB 14.1 billion to RMB 73.6 billion, showcasing an annual growth rate exceeding 20 percent. Even in 2020, amidst the pandemic with a reduced holiday, the Labor Day period generated RMB 47.5 billion in tourism revenue.
Nonetheless, there are currently no plans to modify this system further, which suggests make-up workdays will continue to be a fixture. Many scholars assert that due to China's significant reliance on labor-intensive industries, any additional non-productive days would impose too great a burden on businesses.
Despite this, the prevalence of weekend make-up days receives unfavorable feedback from employees. An online survey in 2013 revealed that over 70 percent of participants were dissatisfied with the holiday arrangements. A subsequent survey in 2021, focused on residents of Beijing, indicated an increased acceptance of the holiday adjustment system, though 46 percent continued to express dissatisfaction
How did the concept of make-up working days originate?