2024-03-25 23:25:18
As we face a serious crisis of extremely low birth rates, with the total fertility rate at an all-time low of 0.65, the government is considering increasing parental leave benefits.
According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor (hereinafter referred to as the Ministry of Employment and Labor) on the 25th, the government recently commissioned a ‘study on improving systems such as childcare leave benefits.’ An official from the Ministry of Employment and Labor said, “In order to promote the use of childcare leave, we plan to improve the overall system of childcare leave benefits, expand the application of benefits to eliminate blind spots in childcare leave, and review measures to raise financial resources.”
The Ministry of Employment and Labor plans to look into ways to improve the overall system of childcare leave benefits by analyzing overseas cases and reviewing the necessity and effect of increasing the income replacement rate of childcare leave benefits. Currently, childcare leave benefits are provided at 80% of the regular monthly wage during the childcare leave period, and the upper limit is 1.5 million won.
Although the amount of 1.5 million won is small compared to what you earn while working, in reality, those on childcare leave receive 1.125 million won per month. The remaining 375,000 won (25%) is a post-employment payment, which is paid all at once six months after the person on leave returns to work. In this situation, fathers’ parental leave will inevitably lead to a decrease in household economic income.
In fact, many male workers cited a decrease in income as the reason why it was difficult to take parental leave. According to the results of the low birth rate awareness survey announced by the Population Health and Welfare Association in January 2022, 40.7% of the 1,113 ‘working dads’, 890 who had never used parental leave, were concerned about ‘reduction in income.’ 47.5% of men cited ‘the workplace atmosphere where men do not take childcare leave’, but the reality is that they cannot help but think about the household economy as well.
Amid a serious population cliff crisis, the ruling party also promoted ‘happiness for both work and family’ as its first pledge in the April 10 general election, mandating one month of paid maternity leave for fathers, and establishing flexible working hours during childcare as part of corporate culture. The Democratic Party is also expected to put its heads together in the political world to discuss work-family balance after the general election, with the Democratic Party also suggesting preventing women’s career breaks and strengthening men’s parental leave to ‘solve the problem of low birth rates.’
In addition, the government is analyzing the effectiveness of the ‘post-payment system’ introduced in January 2011 and reviewing reform measures. The post-mortem payment is a provision designed to encourage those on parental leave to return to work, but it has been pointed out that it needs to be reformed due to the low birth rate. When announcing the economic policy direction for 2024 in January, the government announced that it would abolish post-payment payments and consider switching to full payments during the leave period.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor plans to determine the effectiveness of the post-payment system by analyzing employment retention rates using the employment insurance database. In addition, in order to eliminate blind spots in childcare leave benefits, we plan to look into ways to expand application to specially employed workers and artists and to raise financial resources.
Reporter Shin Min-seop Photo News 1
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2024-03-25 23:25:18