1 in 3 Women Experience Career Breaks... Average Age 28.4 Years, 7.8 Years Until Reemployment

Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Conducts Survey on Women Aged 25-54

Career Interruption Rate 35.0%
Most Common Timing: Before First Childbirth

Parental Leave Usage Rate 37.5%, Childcare Leave 35.7%
Return to Work Rate After Childcare Leave 42.3%

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Hyun-joo] One in three working women has experienced a career break. The average age at which they first experienced a career break was 28.4 years, and it took 7.8 years on average to return to work.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced on the 12th the results of the 2019 Economic Activity Survey of Women Experiencing Career Breaks, targeting 6,020 unmarried and married women aged 25 to 54. This is a nationally approved statistic conducted every three years through household visits and personal interviews.

The survey found that 35.0% of women experienced career breaks due to marriage, pregnancy and childbirth, child-rearing, or family care. This is somewhat lower than the 40.6% recorded in 2016.

The timing of the first career break was before the first childbirth for 56.9% of women, and during the first year after childbirth for 23.2%. The average age was 28.4 years, and the period to find a job again after the career break was 7.8 years, six months shorter than the 8.4 years recorded in 2016.

More than half of the women who experienced career breaks did not use maternity protection systems such as maternity leave or parental leave. Only 37.5% of women who experienced career breaks used maternity leave, and just 35.7% used parental leave. The rate of returning to work after using parental leave was also low at 43.2%.

◆Higher Career Break Rates in Smaller Companies=Women working in smaller companies had higher rates of career breaks. The proportion of women working in small businesses with fewer than 10 employees at the time of career break was 46.3%, up 5.6 percentage points from 40.7% in 2016. The proportion working in companies with 500 or more employees decreased by 2.7 percentage points to 5.5% compared to 2016.

The first job after a career break had lower income and a higher rate of part-time work than before. The monthly wage (income) for the first job after a career break was 1,915,000 KRW, down 270,000 KRW. This was about 356,000 KRW less than women who had not experienced a career break.

After experiencing a career break, the proportion of regular employees dropped significantly from 83.4% to 55.0%, while the proportions of temporary workers and self-employed without employees increased from 7.8% to 14.6% and from 4.8% to 17.5%, respectively. The rate of part-time work also rose sharply from 5.4% at the time of career break to 16.7% in the first job after. Working hours decreased by 2.6 hours to 43.2 hours compared to the time of career break.

◆Reasons for Not Experiencing Career Breaks=Conversely, the main reason women did not experience career breaks was that "even though it is difficult now, the work has future development potential" (38.4%). This was followed by "support from family members for child-rearing" (25.8%) and "availability of trustworthy childcare facilities" (15.9%).

Non-employed women’s desired government policies were "support for creating a corporate culture that enables work-life balance" (36.0%), "expansion of quality part-time jobs" (34.2%), and "expansion of government-supported jobs" (25.9%).

Working women’s desired government policies to maintain their careers were "expansion of trustworthy childcare facilities" (33.6%), "introduction and expansion of flexible work systems" (32.1%), and "support for career development programs for continuous skill development" (26.5%).

Minister of Gender Equality and Family Lee Jung-ok said, "The government will create an environment where women can work without career breaks by spreading a work-life balance culture and expanding trustworthy care facilities. We will also strive to help women who have experienced career breaks return to work through expanding high value-added job training at Women’s New Work Centers and operating focused case management services for women in their 30s and 40s."

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