Holding a press conference: 'Change Blind Low-birth Basic Scheme'

'The 2nd Low-birth and Aging Society Basic Scheme' that the government announced in past September, was confirmed in a Cabinet meeting on October 26. On that day, we at the KWWA, opposition parties, women, labor and/ or civil NGOs pointed out the government's impractical reality-blind countermeasures to low-birth rates.

 

The government's representative countermeasures to Korean low-birth rates for promoting balances between family matters and jobs are to ensure parental leaves at a fixed rate of 40% and paid 3 day partner leaves, to spread flexible working hour systems, and to introduce self-regulating childcare centers. However, these policies are just nominal and blind to most women's situations. These policies do not reflect irregular women workers accounting for 70% out of all working women, and what is worse is that the policies try to form incompatibility amongst working women and worsen discrimination against irregular women workers. Further, for sure, we believe the introduction of self-regulating childcare centers will double childcaring burden on parents and accelerate socio-economic polarization because childcare services are in cruel hand of the market.

 

We believe the government should make policies preventing women from being dismissed because of their pregnancies and child birth, and those encouraging men to participating in childcare. According to a recent survey, 71% of Korean women stop working after their child births, and working moms view personnel disadvantages against them due to their pregnancies and child birth as the hardest things.

In conclusion, enterprise environment and social environments in our society are not adequate and sufficient enough to help people to balance their jobs and family matters. In other words, the discriminatory and inhumane corporate practices should be improved to ensure all working women can take maternity leaves without fear, and the government should take practical and feasible policies for working women.

 

Moreover, the present parental leave system should be largely enhanced. The present system has so many limitations that the rate of income substitution is very low and male workers have a low partner leave of 1.4%. Wages should be guaranteed at higher levels than the minimum wage, in order that an increasing number of workers can take parental leaves, and drastic steps are needed for a higher number of male workers to take partner leaves. For this, ▲ policies to encourage women's employment during the periods of their pregnancies and child birth ▲ steps to ensure employment, not the expansion of the flexible labor, are needed, and further, ▲ the scheme of 'self-regulating childcare centers' should be withheld because it burdens parents, and national and public childcare facilities should be increased.