• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.125-150
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• 2021

Objective: The purpose of this study is to explore the parental role that men experience during parental leave. From the moment when a man decides to take parental leave, to his experiences during parental leave, and to the father's role that lasts until after reinstatement, this course will be examined. Methods: The subjects of this study were five fathers who were taking parental leave. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews done on Zoom, telephone calls and e-mail. Results: The results are as follows. First, the motive for the father's decision to take parental leave was that he wanted to take a break from work and to spend time with his children. Second, the father had experiences of a caregiver and secure-base for his ones. Also, he experienced intergenerational transmission of his parental role. Third, the father's role was maintained even after parental leave. Conclusion/Implications: The decision to take parental leave was a process of conformation of one's own decision. The parental role of the father was experienced through daily life and interaction with his children. And that continued even after parental leave.

• Journal of Family Relations
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.87-109
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• 2017

Objectives: While employed mothers' use of maternity and parental leave has increased, the contexts that facilitate or hinder mothers' leave policy use have been under examined. The purpose of this study was to explore mothers' experiences of using maternity and parental leave. Method: Twenty-two mothers with young child under age three participated in this study. Results: All 22 mothers used maternity leave and 12 mothers used parental leave. Three main themes were identified: different experiences of maternity leave, experiences of parental leave, and skepticism about the leave policy but with some hope that it will improve. Regarding the mothers' experiences of maternity leave, the mothers thought that maternity leave was easily accessible but some mothers still felt guilty for using maternity leave. They also prepared for their work gap before the leave to avoid harming their colleagues. Accessibility to parental leave varied according to the characteristics of the organizations (i.e., family-friendly organization culture, supportive supervisor) and family contexts (i.e., availability of child care from family members, financial issues). The mothers perceived that while parental leave helps working mothers coordinate their family and work life, it is not as accessible as maternity leave in Korea. They suggested extending the maternity leave duration and improving accessibility to parental leave. Conclusions: These findings suggest that policy support is warranted to help employed mothers with young children remain in the workforce. This study also has implications for supporting employed mothers' work and family life.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.5-42
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• 2016

This study investigates why some female workers come to decide to leave work after their taking parental leave and subsequently classifies their resignation backgrounds into four ideal types. The current debates on parental leave have mostly focused on clarifying the factors that influence on workers' usage of parental leave. But given that the final goal of parental leave is to help workers return to work after temporary rest for parenting, it is very important to inquire why some workers fail in reverting to their companies after parental leave. Based on in-depth interviews with 8 female workers who leave work after parental leave, this study analyses and compares their previous work-family conditions, reasons for taking parental leave and withdrawing from work, and behavioral patterns after resignation. This article then typifies four ideal types of resignation backgrounds (i.e. penalty by company, evasion from work, decision by family, choice for family). At the conclusion, this paper suggests policy alternatives to diminish female workers' resignation after parental leave and to heighten their work-family balance.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.33-45
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• 2016

Purpose: This study was conducted to generate a grounded substantive theory of the adaptation process of nurses who return to work after taking parental leave. Methods: Individual in-depth interviews with 13 participants were conducted between June and September 2014. Participants were interviewed 1~3 times; interviews were continued until the data became saturated. Data were analyzed using Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory method. Results: The core category of experience of the process of adaptation as a nurse who returned to work after parental leave was 'trying to regain one's previous position'. Participants used five interactional strategies: 'preparing in advance', 'initiating relationships with colleagues', 'keeping a positive attitude', 'understanding parenting helpers', 'Taking burden off one's mind'. Conclusion: The results of this study provide a theoretical basis for the adaptation process of nurses returning to work after taking parental leave. The importance of improving nurses' attitudes to their co-workers who take parental leave is highlighted along with the necessity of providing a family-friendly work environment. These results can be used to develop supportive policies and programs for nurses who return to their work after parental leave.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.169-197
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• 2012

It is often argued that the parental leave should be extended in order to help employees achieve the balance of work and family life. However, one should be careful in designing the parental leave since there is a tradeoff between the continuity of employment after childbearing and the depreciation of human capital due to the time off the work. The paper investigates whether the parental leave payment introduced in Korea in 2001 helped women's take-up of the leave and employment after giving birth. The results are as follows. First, the increase in the payment indeed raised the female take-up of the leave. Second, women returned to labor market less often after giving birth in the short run, but the size of the effect tends to decrease in the long run. However, the negative effect on returning to the same workplace after the birth remains significant in the long run. Lastly, there is no evidence that the share of women of childbearing age at workplace changed due to the increase in the parental leave payment. Although there is a limitation in that the analysis is based only on the employment covered by the Employment Insurance, these findings imply that the increase in the parental leave payment may not be an effective policy tool for promoting female labor market participation. On the other hand, it should be noted that it is necessary to pay attention to child development as well as female employment as an objective in order to make an overall judgement on the parental leave policy.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.18-26
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• 2022

Purpose: This study investigated whether parenting stress, work-family conflict, resilience affect retention intent in Korean nurses returning to work after parental leave. Methods: The participants in this study were 111 nurses recruited from 10 hospitals in Korea, who were working after formal parental leave from their hospitals. Collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the t-test, analysis of variance, the Mann-Whitney U-test, Pearson correlation coefficients, and hierarchical regression. Results: Retention intention (33.80±7.78), parenting stress (101.70±17.57), and resilience (85.02±12.75) were at greater than moderate levels and a midpoint level of work-family conflict (29.63±7.00) was noted in this sample of mostly women nurses in their 30s. The factors affecting retention intent were parental leave duration, the number of times that participants had taken parental leave, health condition, work-family conflict, and resilience. The total explanatory power of these variables was 36.7%. Retention intent had a negative correlation with parenting stress and work-family conflict. Conversely, retention intent was positively correlated with resilience. Conclusion: This study supports the need for flexible adjustment of returning nurses' working hours and family-friendly policies to promote balance between work and family. It is also necessary to develop and apply measures that boost resilience and support health improvement for nurses returning to work.As nurses are often assigned to new areas of work upon return, training programs to aid their adjustment may also be helpful.

• Korean Parent-Child Health Journal
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.20-27
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to review the literature on paternity leave and family health over the last 10 years. Methods: Nine studies that met the criteria were selected from sixty-four studies. General characteristics, study design, and major findings about paternity leave were analyzed using an established analysis framework. Results: From the integrative review, paternity leave was found to affect the health of fathers, mothers, and children, as well as family health and gender equality. The father's paternity leave resulted in an increase in mothers' breast feeding rate, a decrease in maternal depression, a reduction in parenting stress, a reduction in all-cause mortality of men, feelings of instinctive paternal love, increased parenting, skills, and positive parent-child relationships. It was interpreted that paternity leave had a positive effect on the mental and physical health of individual members of the family. Conclusion: This study provides the basic data on the health effects of father's parental leave on the family system in a holistic view. In addition, this study proposes the direction of paternity leave and family health research and policy needs.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.769-778
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• 2023

This study compared and analyzed parental leave and child allowance, two major policies among solutions to the current serious low fertility rate problem, using unstructured data, and sought future directions and implications for related response policies based on this. The collection keywords were "low fertility + parental leave" and "low fertility + child allowance", and data analysis was conducted in the following order: text frequency analysis, centrality analysis, network visualization, and CONCOR analysis. As a result of the analysis, first, parental leave was found to be a realistic and practical policy in response to low fertility rates, as data analysis showed more diverse and systematic discussions than child allowance. Second, in terms of child allowance, data analysis showed that there was a high level of information and interest in the cash grant benefit system, including child allowance, but there were no other unique features or active discussions. As a future improvement plan, both policies need to utilize the existing system. First, parental leave requires improvement in the working environment and blind spots in order to expand the system, and second, child allowance requires a change in the form of payment that deviates from the uniform and biased system. should be sought, and it was proposed to expand the target age.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.40
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• pp.68-96
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• 2000

Parental leave in Sweden is a part of the health insurance in national social insurance system. It has two kinds of benefits. One is parental cash benefit paid for both husband and wife on the occasion of child birth, currently 450days for each child. The other is temporary parental cash benefit when a child under the age of twelve or a caretaker for him is illness, which is six months for a child a year. Parental insurance in Sweden permits parents to take care of their children just after birth at home with the amount of 80% of monthly income for 360 days and 60 Swedish krone each day for 90 days more. It also permits parents with children under the age of eight of part-time work and return to former job at full-time base when they want. It consequently encourages women's economic activity in her whole life and contributes to promotion of equality in sex roles between husband and wife. This insurance scheme is beneficient in that it enhances individual and family welfare and also secures labour force. This case study on Swedish parental insurance offers implication how to resolve the conflict between women's increased demand for economic activity and maternal role.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.531-546
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• 2005

This study is to examine current child care support policies and their limitations and to make some suggestions by means of statistics and previous literature. Major findings are as follows: First, As the women have younger children, the effect is more negative. Second, a maternity leave of Korea is 90 days, which is below ILO standard. Moreover, it is not well supported by the companies they work for. Third, the increasing number of men has spent a paternity leave since the pertinent law was enforced in 2001. The rate of spending the leave, however, is not as high as expected, because it has not yet been decided whether the leave would be paid or not. Lastly, the number of the employer-supporting child care center is rather few due to the legal standard of the facility and the expense that a company should cover. Only 46.5% of the companies that has been appointed to obligatorily establish the center now operate the facility. Therefore, child care support policies should be reformed or improved to help reduce married women's child care burden obviously hindering women from being employed, and this will consequently promote their economic activities. It is also urgently required to expand the application of the parental leave in terms of both object and scope. It is important that employers and employees get ready to compromise each other on the wage issue during the leave. In addition, the flexibility in period and form of the parental leave and the connection of working places with local community for better child care service must be taken into consideration.