South Korea will extend parental leave to 18 months due to low birthrate

South Korea plans to increase paternity and maternity leave by another six months to a total of 18 months to boost the country’s low birth rates.

The measure is included in a report that the Minister of Labor, Lee Jeong-sik, sent to the South Korean President, Yoon Suk-yeol, to detail the policies planned for this year, according to officials from this portfolio to the Yonhap agency.

In fact, the measure contemplates guaranteeing 18 months of leave to both parents if both work, as opposed to the current 12 months.

Although the number of men seeking paternity leave has doubled in the past decade, only one in five South Koreans seeking postnatal parental leave is a man, amid the well-established belief that childcare is primarily the responsibility of women. .

The Ministry’s measure seeks to continue increasing the proportion of men who request the permit, although many fear that the South Korean corporate culture -reluctant to fully comply with the permits and unfavorable for men to request them- will continue to hamper this growth.

South Korea reaped in 2021 its lowest birth rate since there are records (5.1 births per 1,000 inhabitants) and also the lowest fertility rate in the world (each South Korean brings 0.81 children into the world, well below the average for the OECD of 1.59).

The continued decline in the birth rate also affects the labor market of the fourth largest economy in Asia, to which must be added that in the last three years the country has tightened its customs requirements due to the pandemic, cutting the number of visas for immigrants .

That is why the Ministry plans to increase the number of people who will be able to access the so-called “non-professional visa” to the record number of 110,000.

Source: EFE