More dads in South Korea taking paternity leave while fewer people get married
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The number of workers with shortened working hours during their parental leave increased by 11.3 times from 2,000 in 2015 to 23,000 in 2023.
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SEOUL - Amid growing concerns over South Korea’s low birth rate, statistics show that the proportion of men who took parental leave in 2023 increased by fivefold from eight years ago.
According to the country’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family on Sept 5, men accounted for 28 per cent of the 126,000 people accessing parental leave benefits in 2023.
That marked a significant improvement in workplace culture compared with 2015, when men accounted for only 5.6 per cent of the total people who took parental leave.
The percentage of male workers utilising flexible working hours increased 3.6 times, from 4.7 per cent in 2015 to 17.1 per cent in 2023. In the same period, women workers doing the same tripled from 4.6 per cent to 13.9 per cent.
The number of those with shortened working hours during parental leave also increased by 11.3 times from 2,000 to 23,000 in the same period.
The percentages of women and men who were satisfied with the work-family culture at their workplace were 35.1 per cent and 34.9 per cent respectively, up 11.5 percentage points and 13.6 percentage points from 2017.
The employment rate for women also improved significantly. For those aged between 15 and 64, the rate was 61.4 per cent, up 5.7 percentage points from 55.7 per cent in 2015. And for women in their early 30s, the rate increased 11.7 percentage points from 59.6 per cent to 71.3 per cent.
The number of married women who ended their careers due to giving birth or child-rearing decreased by 34.9 per cent – from 2.073 million to 1.349 million.
The share of low-wage workers earning less than two-thirds of the median wage also fell to 19 per cent for women and 9.8 per cent for men, down 12.7 percentage points and 3.5 percentage points respectively.
Meanwhile, the number of single-person households accounted for over one-third of total households nationwide, a whopping 50.5 per cent hike from 2015. The age groups with the highest proportions were men in their 30s (21.8 per cent) and women in their 60s (18.6 per cent).
In line with the declining birth rate, the number of people getting married for the first time plummeted about 37 per cent to 149,000 from 238,000 in 2015.
The average age in those marriages went up – 31.5 years old for women and 34 years old for men, up 1.5 and 1.4 years respectively.
The number of people living in multicultural households – those with a non-Korean parent or spouse, the child of such a parent or a naturalised Korean citizen – also increased 34.2 per cent from 2015 to 1.19 million in 2023.
“We will continue to identify and promote policies that will be of practical help to the people, such as work-life balance, by carefully examining the lives of women and men,” said Ms Shin Young-sook, Deputy Minister of Gender Ministry.
The ministry released the statistics to examine changes related to population, households, the labour market, work-life balance and social awareness. The statistics were compiled using data published by various ministries. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
