By Kim Jae-won
Staff Reporter
As many as 80 percent of working women here delay having children due to the poor child care environment, a recent survey showed.
In a survey of 295 married female workers, Job Korea, an online recruiting company, found that eight out of 10 of them, either delayed or gave up having children due to a lack of childcare offered by companies here.
"I had to quit my job because no one could take care of my baby except for me,’’ said a female office worker in her 30s who asked not to be named. She recently left her workplace, where she worked for six years.
The survey also showed that 77.4 percent of the respondents were willing to have more than two children if their company were to provide a childcare center, while 75.3 percent said that they would prefer companies with a childcare center even if they offer less pay.
Analysts say that having a childcare center at workplaces would boost the country’s birthrate.
"The key point is that companies need to provide childcare centers for working moms. If they do so, they may attract talented workers even at a relatively low salary,’’ Na Kwang-choul, assistant manager at Job Korea, said.
According to the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, workplaces that have more than 500 employees or more than 300 female workers are obliged to provide a childcare center, contract an outside childcare center or provide an allowance for employees who have children aged under six.
Currently, 285 workplaces provide childcare facilities nationwide, 176 provide the allowance, and 41 contract an outside care center.
The nation’s birthrate stood at 1.25 in 2007, but went down to 1.19 a year later and is estimated to have fallen to 1.15 in 2009, an official at the ministry said. The rate is below that of advanced countries such as Japan, France, and Germany, whose birthrates stood at 1.37, 1.99, and 1.38 as of 2008, respectively.