30,000 parents who took parental leave last year … 26.7% increase

Check-in 2020.12.22 12:00

Last year, the number of people who took parental leave approached 160,000. In particular, in accordance with the government policy that encourages “parenting”, male parental leave has increased significantly.

The National Statistics Office published ‘2019 Parental Leave Statistics’ on the 22nd. According to statistics, last year, the number of users on parental leave was 159,153, 4.5% more than the previous year. This is the highest level since the start of statistics writing in 2003. Compared to 2010 (72,769 people), it increased 2.2 times.

31,665 parents took parental leave, which represented 19.9% ​​of the total. This is an increase of 26.7% compared to 2018. The number of mothers was 12,7488 (80.1% of the participation), 0.2% more than the previous year. Compared to 2010, fathers increased 16.1 times and mothers 1.8 times.

The number of paternity leave during the year for every 100 children born in 2019 was 22.8, an increase of 1.6 compared to the previous year. Compared to 2010, which was nine years ago, it is about 2.4 times higher. However, the rate of parental leave use by parents was only 1.8%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points from the previous year. The rate of use of parental leave by mothers registered 63.6%, an increase of 0.7 percentage points over the previous year. This means that, although the culture in which people can take leave immediately after childbirth is spreading, the proportion of paternity leave for men remains low.

It was found that 69.6% of paternity leaves are working for companies with more than 300 employees (including government agencies). It can be interpreted that the larger the size of the public servant or the company to which the position belongs, the more they are taking parental leave. According to the industry ranking, 53.5% of the wealth was devoted to manufacturing, public administration or specialized, scientific and technological industries. 45.8% of the mothers worked in health and social welfare services, public administration or education.

The proportion of those who actually took parental leave among those eligible for parental leave for children born in 2019 was 21.6%, 0.9% more than the previous year (20.7%). When looking at the composition by age groups that took parental leave for the children born last year, the fathers were between 35 and 39 years old (40.7%) and the mothers between 30 and 34 years old (51.8%).

“The number of parental leave for parents is increasing rapidly, but the proportion is still low,” said Kang Yoo-kyung, director of the Office of Social Statistics at the Office of Social Statistics. ), the use of parental leave for parents is high (4.6%) and the situation is led by the public administration sector rather than the private sector ”.