How does China mark Mother's Day?
母亲节（无官方地位）
- Local date
- May 9, 2027
- When is it?
- Popularly observed on the second Sunday of May; not included in the Measures for the Arrangement of National Annual Festivals and Memorial Days Holidays (全国年节及纪念日放假办法)
Mother's Day has no official standing in China, just as Father's Day has none: the State Council's Measures sort days into those for all citizens and those for some, and the latter list carries Women's Day, Youth Day, Children's Day and Army Day — Mother's Day is in neither. Set against it is 8 March: on Women's Day women get half a day off, and that is written into the Measures. The same state gives "women" and "mothers" different institutional treatment — one has half a holiday, the other has a florists' season.
What is this topic?
Four places keep Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May; Indonesia keeps it on 22 December — and there it is not a day for thanking mothers but a political commemoration of the first Indonesian Women's Congress of 1928. This page compares how the day was established in each place: a congressional resolution, a statute that names it and explicitly gives no day off, a peak in the cut-flower trade, or the starting point of a women's movement.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.