Parental leave included in work history

By Yun Suh-young

The government said Friday that a parental leave should be part of an employee’s work history despite some exceptional cases depending on the nature of their job.

In response to a request for an authoritative decision as to whether parental leave should be considered part of employment history when deciding on the promotion of a librarian, the Ministry of Government Legislation ruled against it.

“Under the Library Law, a librarian must work full time for the period to be a legitimate part of the employment history. If an employee takes parental leave, that time of absence cannot be included in the employment history as she was not working ‘full-time,’” the ministry said.

Following media reports on the ministry’s decision, female rights activists and lawmakers have expressed concerns that the interpretation is the same for other workplaces as well.

Sim Sang-jung, a lawmaker of the Democratic United Party, said on her Twitter, “The interpretation goes against the government policy of trying to encourage people to have more children. This will make it more discouraging for women to have children while pursuing a career.”

The ministry, however, explained that the decision is simply limited to librarians who are planning to acquire a certificate to become senior librarians.

“In this case, the interpretation is limited to librarians who want to acquire senior status. To do this, the law requires them to have worked full-time without counting the parental leave period,” a ministry official said. “The decision should not to be broadly interpreted to apply to other occupations.”

“Usually, workplaces make their own decision about whether or not to include the parental leave period in the employment history. The decision made by our ministry this time is solely confined to the library which made the request. We make interpretations only when an organization asks for help,” said the official from the legislation ministry.

“Our job is to clarify laws that are vague to interpret. The decision this time should not be seen as something encompassing all workplaces as it only applies to one specific case,” he said.