Nearly half of workers unable to freely take parental leave, survey finds

Nearly half of all workers in South Korea are unable to freely use parental leave or reduced working hours for childcare, a new survey has found.

Workplace harassment watchdog Jikjang Gapjil 119 commissioned polling firm Global Research to survey 1,000 workers aged 19 and older nationwide from June 1 to June 9. The results showed that 46.7 percent of respondents said they could not freely take parental leave.

Workers at companies with fewer than five employees reported far greater difficulty — 68.6 percent said they could not freely use parental leave — compared with 30.5 percent at firms with 300 or more employees. Non-regular workers (62.3 percent) also fared worse than permanent employees (36.3 percent). Among female non-regular workers, the negative response rate reached 70.2 percent.

Some 41.6 percent of respondents said they could not freely take maternity or paternity leave. Among female non-regular workers, 65.9 percent said they had difficulty using such leave. By contrast, men and senior managers — groups with already low take-up rates for both systems — were more likely to say they could use the leave freely.

Barriers were even higher for family care leave: 52 percent of respondents said they could not use it freely, a higher share than for parental or maternity leave. Women and non-regular workers again reported the greatest difficulty.

Of the consultations received by Jikjang Gapjil 119 from January through June in which the complainant's identity was confirmed, 36 involved workplace harassment related to childbirth or childcare. Cases included employers notifying workers of termination during parental leave and then ostracizing them upon their return, managers increasing workloads for employees on reduced hours and forcing them to work overtime, and workers being transferred to distant locations after applying for shorter working hours.

"The effectiveness of these systems depends on working conditions — including workplace size, employment type, wage level and whether a union exists," Jikjang Gapjil 119 said. "For the systems to work in practice, gapjil must be eradicated and organizations must build a culture in which maternity leave and parental leave are treated as a matter of course."