Sick Leave for a Shanghai Nanny — What's Standard and What's Fair

Sick leave in a Shanghai household-employment context covers three scenarios that families often confuse:

• Acute illness — flu, fever, food poisoning, COVID, gastric issues. 1–5 days of recovery, the nanny does not come to work.
• Chronic or planned medical — a scheduled procedure, dental work, a recurring condition that needs management. Usually planned in advance.
• Family illness — her child or parent is sick and she needs to manage that. Sometimes overlaps with annual leave.

Mainland Chinese labor law has a sick-leave framework with medical-treatment periods (医疗期) based on tenure, but the framework was designed for formal employer-employee relationships and applies awkwardly to household employment. In Shanghai practice, household employment uses a simpler market norm:

• 3–5 paid sick days per year for full-time roles.
• Days beyond that are unpaid but the role continues.
• Doctor's note required for 2+ consecutive days.
• 1-day absences with notice (e.g., "I have a fever today") don't require documentation.

Standard terms in Shanghai today:

Most full-time placements use 5 paid sick days as the standard. Yuesao contracts are different — they're fixed-term and intensive, so sick leave during a yuesao contract usually means the agency replaces her with a backup yuesao for the affected days, not unpaid leave.

For the family side: budget for ~3–5% of working days as sick or backup-cover days across the year. That's 15–20 days of household disruption to plan for. Most of it is small (1 day here, 1 day there); the rare bigger event is a 3-5 day flu or a planned surgery.

• Informal sick leave, then resentment. Family takes "call me if you're sick" approach for the first 6 months, then quietly tracks days and gets annoyed when the count crosses some line they never communicated. Write the allowance into the contract from day 1.
• Pressuring the nanny to come to work sick. Common when the family doesn't have backup cover ready. The result: kids catch what she has, then the parents catch it, then the household is sick for 10 days instead of 3. Worth 1 day of inconvenience to keep her home.
• No backup-ayi phone number. Every expat family should have a part-time backup ayi's number saved before the placement starts. ¥ 300–500/day for emergency cover is normal. Many partner agencies maintain a backup pool.
• Demanding a doctor's note for every single sick day. Counterproductive. The note threshold is 2+ days. For 1-day absences, a WeChat message is enough.
• Confusing sick leave with annual leave. They're separate. Don't draw down sick leave for personal time, or vice versa.

• Write the clause. Specify: 5 paid sick days per year, 2+ consecutive days requires a doctor's note, additional sick leave is unpaid but the placement continues, the role isn't terminable for normal illness.
• Save a backup-ayi number. Either through your placement agency or via a referral. Confirm she's available in your neighborhood at short notice.
• Brief the nanny. On day 1, walk her through the sick-leave terms. Make clear: if she's sick, she calls in by 07:00 the same day, and the family handles cover. Better for her to rest than to come to work sick.
• Track absences quietly. Calendar entry or simple spreadsheet. Not to be punitive — just so the annual review at month 12 has accurate data.
• Have a plan for the bigger illnesses. Flu in winter, food poisoning in summer are predictable. 1–3 days of self-cover or backup ayi is the typical response.
• At month 12, review. If she's used 1–2 sick days, fine. If she's used 15, ask gently what's going on — it's usually one specific cause and worth understanding.

• A nanny who never takes a sick day in 12 months. Sometimes it's good health; sometimes it's fear-driven and she's coming to work sick. Check in. "You don't have to come in if you're not well" is a worthwhile thing to say out loud.
• A nanny who takes 15+ sick days in 12 months with no clear explanation. Sometimes it's a real chronic condition (worth supporting), sometimes it's a placement that isn't working (worth investigating).
• A contract clause that says "no sick leave" or "sick days deducted from salary at 2× rate." Not market norm. Push back.
• Pressure from the agency or candidate for 10+ paid sick days. Above market norm. 5 is standard.
• A pattern of sick days landing on Mondays or before weekends. Worth investigating quietly. Sometimes coincidence; sometimes a signal.