South Korea pushes for better work-life balance to ease falling birth rate

SEOUL – At K-beauty brand Ma:nyo, employees can take time off from work to look after their children, run errands, or pop out for a yoga class or tennis lesson – during office hours.

They are free to manage their work schedules, as long as they complete the mandatory number of working hours stipulated each month, which averages about 171 hours. This works out to roughly 8½ hours a day.

“It is about focusing on the work tasks, rather than the work hours, so I think that makes my company more efficient and more effective,” Ma:nyo’s senior vice-president Choi Jin-ho told The Straits Times. 

The company, known for its best-selling cleansing oil product, was named an exemplary employer for its work-family balance policies by the South Korean government in September.

Ma:nyo’s flexible working arrangement bucks the trend in South Korea’s notoriously demanding corporate culture. One in four workers is not able to leave the workplace on time, a poll released in October found, with respondents citing excessive workloads and office culture as the primary reasons. 

Poor work-life balance has been cited as a key reason for South Korea’s nose-diving fertility rate, which hit a record low of 0.72 birth per person in 2023, a situation that politicians have called a national emergency.

South Korean workers put in an average of 1,872 hours annually in 2023, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), when the average for OECD countries was 1,742 hours.

In an economic outlook report released in July, the OECD attributed South Korea’s declining birth rate to several factors, including a challenging social climate that makes it difficult to balance work and family. 

It emphasised the need to “reduce working hours to improve work-life balance and help turn around the fertility trend”, and suggested expanding parental leave to all workers, as well as expanding public and workplace childcare facilities. 

The South Korean authorities are now targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) like Ma:nyo, which account for 83 per cent of employment in the country, to promote better work-life balance work cultures, in a bid to ease the declining birth rate.

From February 2025, the government will offer tax incentives for SMEs that meet the Labour Ministry’s criteria for exemplary work-life balance practices and increase subsidies for those that hire substitute workers to cover employees on maternity leave.

When announcing the measures in late September, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said employers and workplace cultures play a key role in encouraging a higher birth rate. He added that the companies benefit as well, because “supporting work-life balance is not simply an increase in costs, but an investment that enhances corporate competitiveness and leads to greater growth”.

Apart from creating a new ministry by 2025 to oversee low birth rate issues, the South Korean authorities are also rolling out more measures to incentivise employees to have children.

The measures, starting in February 2025, include the doubling of paternal leave from 10 days to 20 days for fathers with newborn children. Parental leave benefits will also be raised to 2.5 million won (S$2,400) per month from the current 1.5 million won, for the first three months after the birth of a child. 

Mothers with prematurely born babies are granted 100 days of maternity leave instead of the standard 90 days, while fertility treatment leave will be increased from three days to six.

Households with newborns will be given priority in housing allocations and low-interest loans for home purchases.

At Ma:nyo, the employee birth rate has increased threefold since the introduction of flexible working hours in early 2022. The company, which has just over 100 employees, will see a total of six babies born in 2024.

Ma:nyo designer Kim Sol-mi, 34, who has been with the company for seven years, did not think much about flexible work arrangements until after she became a mother around two years ago.

She had returned from maternity leave right after the company implemented the new practice. 

Recently, her now 23-month-old baby had a bone fracture, and it made her realise how “valuable” the flexi-time work arrangement is for a good work-life balance.

“The waiting time at paediatric orthopaedic clinics is extremely long, so having the flexibility to step out of the office during work hours was a tremendous help,” said Ms Kim.

Other parents told ST that they welcomed the new government measures.

Mr Jang Sang-ho’s wife lost her job of 10 years at an architectural design firm after taking two years of parental leave to care for their two sons, now aged six and four. During her leave, she received a government subsidy of up to half of her monthly salary.

The subsidy will be capped at 23.1 million won a year from next February, up from 18 million won currently.

“Her company had hired someone to replace her during her leave, and when my wife wanted to return, they apologised and said they cannot afford to support both of them at the same time. So my wife had to leave,” Mr Jang told ST.

Fortunately for the couple, Mr Jang is a researcher at government agency Korea Institute For Robot Industry Advancement, which since 2021 has implemented a flexi-work policy introduced by the public sector to help parents raising young children. 

His daily working hours have been shortened by two hours without affecting his income. Instead of working from 9am to 6pm, he now works from 10am to 5pm, allowing him to drop off and pick up his children from childcare.

This freed up time for his wife to look for a new position. She has found a similar architectural design job, but with a slightly lower pay than the previous one.

If their finances allow, the couple will consider having a third child, given that Mr Jang’s work arrangement allows him to help out with childcare responsibilities.

“For my wife, working is not just about the money, it is about her own life and dreams. She put aside her own aspirations to be my wife and the mother to our two children, but I want her to continue pursuing her dreams.”

Mr Kim Hyun-soo took turns with his wife, a public servant, to take parental leave to care for their three children, aged 10, four and one. 

The 42-year-old works at automotive parts company Hyundai Transys, an affiliate of Hyundai Motor Group. 

He took one year of parental leave in 2021 to help his eldest daughter adjust to elementary school, and was pleasantly surprised when he was promoted during his leave period.

“Being promoted while on leave was surprising. I expected to be excluded, so it felt even more rewarding,” he told ST. 

As an active member of three parenting communities, Mr Kim is trying to change other fathers’ mindsets towards taking paternity leave. 

“Many fathers in the community groups express a strong desire to take paternity leave but are hesitant to do so, as it might affect their careers,” he said.

Still, he advises them to try taking just one month of leave to spend time with their children.

“After they experience the benefits of hands-on parenting, they might be more encouraged to embrace paternity leave benefits, which are a legally protected right.”