Pregnant Mothers' Children Also Included as Priority Admission Candidates for Daycare Centers... Additional Points Awarded

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] From now on, children of pregnant women will also be included as priority admission candidates for daycare centers and will be given additional points. Civil servants will also be able to split their spouse's maternity leave of 10 days into two periods, similar to private sector workers.

On the 2nd, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission announced that it had prepared improvement measures containing these details and recommended institutional improvements to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Personnel Management, Seoul Metropolitan Government, and Daejeon Metropolitan City. This is to enhance the effectiveness of childbirth and childcare support systems.

According to the Commission, currently, children from multi-child families, dual-income families, and single-parent families are included as priority admission candidates for daycare centers and receive additional points, but children of pregnant women are not included. Due to difficulties in daycare admission, they have been facing significant challenges in caring for existing children and household chores.

Therefore, the Commission recommended the Ministry of Health and Welfare to include children of pregnant women in the priority admission additional points for daycare centers.

There have been criticisms that the regulation requiring civil servants to use the 10-day congratulatory and condolence leave consecutively when their spouse gives birth has low effectiveness.

Requests have been continuously raised to allow flexible use of maternity leave since the timing when the spouse's help is needed varies according to personal circumstances.

The Commission recommended the Ministry of Personnel Management to improve the system so that civil servants can also split their spouse's maternity leave into two periods, like private sector workers.

In addition, some local governments' strict issuance criteria for the 'Multi-child Preferential Card' issued to multi-child families have caused dissatisfaction among local residents.

In the case of Seoul, unlike other local governments, both parents must live in Seoul to be issued a multi-child card. If even one parent resides in another city or province for reasons such as livelihood, they were excluded from the issuance target.

Daejeon only issues the multi-child card if all three children are below a certain age, making its issuance criteria stricter compared to other local governments that select recipients based on the age of the youngest child.

The Commission recommended Seoul to include cases where only one parent is registered as residing in Seoul with the children as eligible for the multi-child preferential card issuance, and recommended Daejeon to use the age of the youngest child in the household as the issuance criterion.

Min Seongsim, Director of the Policy Improvement Bureau at the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, said, "We expect that this institutional improvement will enhance the effectiveness of childbirth and childcare support systems promoted by the government and local governments."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.