Caregivers paid less than kindergarten teachers

By Jhoo Dong-chan

Childcare center workers get paid some 2 million won a month less than kindergarten teachers, a survey shows, raising concerns about their poor working conditions.

According to the Ministry of Welfare and the National Assembly Budget Office survey, the nation’s daycare center caregivers in general worked an average of 9 hours and 28 minutes a day and their monthly salary was 1.55 million won ($1,352), on average, in 2011. Public daycare center workers received 1.88 million won while caregivers working in private centers earned only 1.45 million won.

On the contrary, public and private kindergarten teachers took home 3.85 million won and 2.14 million won, respectively.

The wage disparity between public kindergartens and daycare centers reached 1.97 million won a month, while the gap between private facilities was 690,000 won.

Experts pointed out that although qualifications for kindergarten teachers are higher than those in daycare centers, caregivers’ salaries are still too low to maintain the basic living cost.

The survey indicated that daycare workers’ low salary leads to low job satisfaction and frequent job turnover. Daycare center workers’ average working years are just 4.5.

In 2011, 28 percent of a total of 23,000 workers in the country’s 4,000 daycare centers quit their jobs and changed careers, the survey said.

Experts said that a frequent change of daycare staffers could hurt the quality of childcare and child development, which require a stable relationship with caregivers.

“Considering the labor intensity, it needs to raise daycare staffers’ salaries and improve their working conditions,” the National Assembly Budget Office said.

The number of children who need daycare has also increased despite staffers’ poor working conditions.

As of late 2014, about 66 percent of the country’s children aged 2 or younger were sent to daycare centers.

The figure compares with an average of 32.6 percent in the same age group attending daycare in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.

Each daycare staffer now needs to manage six to 10 children, depending on the centers.