Seoul, December 18 (IANS). There was a huge decline in the number of people taking parental leave in South Korea in the year 2023. According to statistics, the main reason for this is disintegrating families.
According to the Yonhap news agency report, according to data released by Statistics Korea, a total of 195,986 workers took or started taking leave from work last year to care for their children, which is 3 percent less than a year earlier (2022). Is.
This is the first annual decline since the agency began compiling the data in 2010. A steady increase was seen in the figures, which was due to some government initiatives.
Under South Korean law, parents of children aged 8 years or younger, or in the second grade of elementary school or below, are eligible for up to one year of maternity or paternity leave.
To address the country's long-standing problem of declining birth rates, the government provides financial assistance to Employment Insurance subscribers who take parental leave.
The data shows that 75.3 percent of all employees who took parental leave last year were women, and the number of women taking maternity leave decreased by 1.4 percent compared to the previous year.
The number of male employees taking parental leave declined by 7.5 percent compared to last year to 50,455. This decline comes as the figure crossed the 50,000 mark for the first time in 2022 after several years of gradual increase.
On the basis of age, among all the mothers who took maternity leave, the highest number were women aged 30-34 years, whose number was 41.3 percent and in second place were women aged 35-39 years, whose number was 33.5 percent.
Among male workers, the share of those aged 35-39 years was the highest at 38.2 per cent, followed by those aged 40 years at 35.7 per cent.
The average age of parents taking leave is gradually increasing, reflecting a trend to delay marriage and childbearing, the agency said.
70 percent of the male employees who took leave were associated with companies with 300 or more employees. For working mothers the proportion was 58.2 percent.
According to the data, the share of mothers working in public health and welfare sector is highest at 19.4 percent, followed by mothers working in public administration and defense sector at 14.6 percent and mothers working in education services sector at 14.6 percent. Is 11.8 percent.
–IANS
AKS/KR
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