Last Year, Nearly 40,000 'Latte Papas'... 120,000 Mothers on Parental Leave

Statistics Korea Announces 2020 Parental Leave Statistics

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyunjung] It was found that 40,000 men took parental leave last year. Although this number has increased about 20 times compared to 10 years ago, the number of mothers who took parental leave was 130,000, more than three times that of men.

According to Statistics Korea's '2020 Parental Leave Statistics (Provisional)' released on the 21st, 169,345 people started parental leave last year for children aged 8 or younger or in the second grade of elementary school or below. This is a 2.3-fold increase compared to 72,967 in 2010.

During the same period, the number of men taking parental leave was 38,511, accounting for 22.7% of all leave takers. This figure increased 19.6 times compared to 1,967 ten years ago. Female parental leave takers accounted for 77.3%, or 130,834, falling below 80% for the first time since statistics began. Compared to 71,000 in 2010, this is a 1.8-fold increase.

Among fathers taking parental leave, those aged 35-39 (43.4%) and 40 or older (32.6%) were the most common, while among mothers, those aged 30-34 (39.8%) and 35-39 (35.8%) accounted for the largest numbers. 63.5% of parental leave takers belonged to companies with 300 or more employees.

Among male parental leave takers, the most common industries were manufacturing (23.2%), public administration (19.5%), and professional and scientific technology (11.0%). For females, the most common industries were health and social welfare (18.4%), public administration (14.6%), and educational services (13.6%).

The parental leave usage rate, which is the proportion of people eligible to take parental leave as parents of children born last year who actually took it, was 24.2%. This proportion has been increasing every year. The usage rate was much higher for mothers at 63.9% compared to fathers at 3.4%.

For parents with one child, 74.4% took parental leave when the child was 0 years old, and 10.3% took parental leave when the child was 6 years old. Among fathers taking parental leave, the highest proportion (17.6%) took leave when the child was 7 years old, while among mothers, the highest proportion (81.3%) took leave when the child was 0 years old.

Regarding the split use of parental leave among parents with one child born in 2011, 81.5% took leave once without splitting it. The proportion who split parental leave once was 16.0%, and those who split it twice accounted for 2.5%.

Among women who gave birth last year, 44.0% had a job on the day of childbirth. The proportion of women who had a job 360 days before childbirth was 54.1%, but this proportion decreased by 10.1 percentage points on the day of childbirth.

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