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| / Korea Times file |
By Kim Bo-eun
Korea guarantees the longest period of paid paternity leave among OECD member states, but few Korean fathers are taking advantage of it.
According to the OECD's family database, paid leave reserved for fathers in Korea was 52.6 weeks, as of 2014.
Following is Japan (52 weeks), France (28 weeks), Luxembourg (26.4 weeks) and the Netherlands (26.4 weeks). The OECD average is nine weeks.
However, few Korean fathers use the paid leave.
According to Statistics Korea data, only 4.45 percent of parents who took leave in 2014 were men. The figure rose slightly in the first half of this year to 5.11 percent.
Korean fathers on average took 5.2 months, according to the OECD. The figure for women was 8.6 months.
This is comparable to Sweden, where fathers took 25.5 percent of parental leave days, and in Iceland 28.5 percent (figures for 2013).
In Germany, fathers took 32 percent of paternal leave in the last quarter of 2006.
In Australia, an online survey of employed fathers with a baby born in April 2013 show that 36 percent of respondents took some "Dad and Partner Pay" in the first six months of their baby's life.
Canada's province of Quebec introduced paid leave for the exclusive use of fathers in 2006, and 56 percent used it that year. By 2013, the figure had soared to 78 percent.
In France, about 62 percent of eligible fathers took paternity leave as of 2012.
In the U.K., a 2009-10 survey showed that 91 percent of employed fathers took at least some time off work after the birth of a child.
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