[K-Women Talk] Let's Protect the Value of Family

Kyungsun Kim, Chairperson of the Population, Health and Welfare Association

When we think of May, the first word that usually comes to mind is "family." There are many days in May dedicated to spending time with family, such as Children's Day on May 5 and Parents' Day on May 8. With May 1 having become a statutory holiday for Labor Day starting this year, office workers now have more opportunities to spend time with their families. Although the increase in public holidays means that working professionals have more time with their families than in the past, in this era of low birth rates, what still needs to be further expanded are policies that support the balance between work and family life.

Korea's policies supporting work-family balance are mostly based on the "Act on Gender Equality Employment and Work-Family Balance." The most well-known measures are parental leave and spousal paternity leave. Maternity leave before and after childbirth is based on the Labor Standards Act and is focused on protecting motherhood, so it is difficult to view this as a strict work-family balance policy. It is more accurate to say that Korea's work-family balance policy began in earnest in 2007, when spousal paternity leave was first introduced. At that time, I was serving as Director of Women's Employment at the Ministry of Employment and Labor, and I was responsible for the practical implementation of the comprehensive revision of the Gender Equality Employment Act, promoted as government legislation. This included the introduction of spousal paternity leave, reduced working hours during childcare, and family care leave. The decision to include the term "work-family balance" directly in the name of the law reflected the growing awareness that it was time for Korea to actively implement such policies.

However, there are legal controversies regarding the implementation of work-family balance policies—specifically, the scope of family members covered. Spousal paternity leave, for example, is interpreted to apply to spouses. The Ministry of Employment and Labor clarified this as an interpretation standard. However, in the case of family care leave and family care absence, the Ministry's administrative interpretation excludes common-law spouses from the definition of family members requiring care. This reality in policy enforcement prevents these measures from being universally utilized. I believe the gap between legal definitions and real-life family structures should be eliminated or minimized as much as possible. Among younger generations, the economic burden of marriage is increasing, leading many to avoid or postpone marriage. Recently, there has also been an increase in elderly couples cohabiting without marriage. These individuals are true families in every sense, yet they fall through the cracks of work-family balance policies.

Legal discrimination also exists in other aspects of family relationships. The Family Relationship Registration Act continues to discriminate against children born out of wedlock. When the birth of a famous actor's child recently became a hot topic, the term "out-of-wedlock child" dominated the media, prompting criticism of such discriminatory language. Nevertheless, the current law still distinguishes between children born in and out of wedlock. The use of discriminatory terminology and the fact that work-family balance policies guaranteed by law are applied differently depending on whether a family is legally married shows that current laws and policies fail to truly reflect the meaning of family. For society to become more safely connected, shouldn't our government, businesses, and communities move toward protecting the value of families as much as possible?

Kyungsun Kim, Chair of the Population and Health Welfare Association (Former Vice Minister of Gender Equality and Family)

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