AT THE start of the year, former civil servant Ye Jiahui (pseudonym) left the government agency where she had worked for 9 years for the private sector, joining one of China’s tech giants.

Ye’s husband is South Korean, and they have a three-year-old child. She told Lianhe Zaobao that her decision was not based solely on salary considerations; rather, she wanted a new environment with flexible hours that would allow better work-life balance.

During the pandemic, Ye’s company at one point allowed their employees to work remotely from overseas. She said: “If my husband needed to return to Korea for whatever reason, I could apply to work from Korea for two months, which wasn’t possible with my last job.”