"Private School Staff 'Paid Parental Leave' Blind Spot Needs Improvement"

Legislative Research Office Report on "Improving the Parental Leave System"
No Pay Regulations Due to Lack of Employment Insurance Coverage
Private School Teachers Receive Allowances Comparable to Public Officials
"Unfair That No Separate Regulations Exist for Staff"

There has been a call for legally guaranteeing paid parental leave for administrative staff at private schools. As the number of parental leave takers increases, private school administrative staff currently have no legal regulations regarding pay during parental leave, and the usage rate is also low.

According to the Legislative Research Office's report titled "Improvement Tasks for the Parental Leave System for Private School Employees" on the 9th, private school employees are not legally guaranteed paid parental leave. Parental leave pay is typically provided to "employment insurance subscribers," but private school employees are subscribers to the Private School Teachers’ Pension, so they are excluded from the pay coverage. Unless internal regulations such as labor-management collective agreements guarantee parental leave pay, they have no choice but to take unpaid leave. On the other hand, private school "teachers," who are also subscribers to the Private School Teachers’ Pension like the staff, receive "parental leave allowances" at the level of public officials through the 2020 amendment of the Private School Act.

Legislative researcher Heo Min-sook pointed out, "Although both work at the same workplace and are equally excluded from employment insurance subscription due to job security reasons, it is nearly unfair that private school teachers receive parental leave allowances comparable to national and public school teachers, while no separate regulations have been established for staff." Currently, the usage rate of parental leave among staff is less than half that of private school teachers. According to data from the Private School Teachers’ Pension Corporation, the parental leave usage rate for private school teachers in 2024 was 1.99%, whereas the usage rate for staff was only 0.79%. Furthermore, while the usage rate for teachers increased annually from 1.70% in 2019, the rate for private school staff rose to 0.86% in 2022 but decreased to 0.79% last year.

Advanced countries overseas are generally expanding the scope of paid parental leave recipients. Denmark and Germany provide parental leave pay even to self-employed individuals. Norway pays about 11.67 million KRW per child as parental leave pay to women who have given birth, even if they are not employees.

Researcher Heo suggested the need to eliminate the blind spot of paid parental leave faced by private school staff through legal amendments. She said, "It is possible to consider including administrative staff in the treatment regulations for teachers under the Private School Act or establishing separate provisions for administrative staff leave," and added, "Since appointed and fixed-term public officials can subscribe to employment insurance at their own request, a similar approach could be considered to allow private school faculty and staff to subscribe to employment insurance."

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