By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
Taking maternity leave three years ago taught 35-year-old Park one lesson: Don't take it again.
She enjoyed three months of paid leave after giving birth to her daughter. But when the public relations manager returned to work, ready to show off her presence again, she quickly realized that her status wasn't the same.
``I could live with less responsibility and a realigned office order, but I couldn't stand the fact that I had to prove myself again ― even to my subordinates,'' said Park, who has been working for a major conglomerate for six years. ``I gave birth, and suddenly I became designated as a less competitive woman.''
She doesn't plan to have any more children.
According to a poll released Monday, plenty of other women of childbearing age are similarly getting convinced to delay pregnancy.
Almost 40 percent out of 572 working women surveyed by online employment portal Career said they'd been put off from getting pregnant due to the risk of putting their job on the line.
Although the country's labor law entitles women who get pregnant and give birth to paid maternity leave for 90 days, moms returning to work feel that they are no longer on a level playing field.
``Employers are reluctant to offer promotions or challenging opportunities,'' said an official of the Korean Women Workers Association. ``Whether intended or not, there are consequences.''
Aside from dealing with a potentially sabotaged career, nearly 42 percent of respondents said money was the biggest reason.
Apparently, the last thing cash-strapped couples want in the current economy is an added financial burden of buying baby milk and disposable diapers.
``It cost at least 500,000 won a month just on basic essentials for my first child,'' recalls Kim Eun-hye, a 32-year-old mother of two who gave birth three years apart. With double the expense now, she said raising two babies is ``incredibly demanding financially.''
South Korea is already dealing with sinking birth rates, but the latest economic slump is expected to take a toll on the number of newborns. The National Statistical Office (NSO) said last month that the nation's birth rate dropped to 1.2, which will consequently lead to a population decline starting in 2018.
The steep slowdown of new births has also pushed Korea into becoming an aging society more quickly. The country was already labeled an ``aging society'' in 2000, with the elderly population exceeding the 7-percent mark. At this pace, Korea will become an aged society in 2018 with the ratio of senior citizens hiking to 14 percent, according to the NSO.
The Career poll showed that 40 percent of women haven't decided when to make birth plans again, while 26 percent said they would within the next year, 13 percent would in three years and 10 percent would in two years.
jhan@koreatimes.co.kr
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