투명사회를 위한 정보공개센터

  “A is a contract public official
in a small-medium sized city. She is a working mother. But there was no place
that can take care of her baby. She had to wait 2 months to send her kid to the
child care center. As there was no one who can take care of her baby during
those 2 months, she had no choice but to request maternity leave. However, she
could not even use the maternity leave. What she heard is that the contract
public official is someone who is hired for special duties so it does not make
sense if she leaves work for 2 months.”

  The Center for Freedom of
Information (CFOI) has requested information disclosure to the Ministry of
Public Administration and Security regarding the maternity leave usage of
general public officials and contract public officials. According to the
disclosed data, the number of cases that contract public officials used the
maternity leave was far less than that of general public officials.

  Seeing at the number of cases, it
is possible to observe that 5479 general public officials in 2010 and 6900
general public officials in 2011 used the maternity leave. As for technical
public officials, 318 people in 2010 and 367 people in 2011 used the maternity
leave. In contrast, only 19 of contract public officials in 2010 and 21 of
contract public officials in 2011 used the maternity leave. As for the public
officials in special services, there were 9 who used the maternity leave in
2010 and 2011.

  However, the above information,
disclosed by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, is not
efficient to observe the rate using maternity leave among entire public officials.
The number of public officials per type of service has been found in the Korean
Statistical Information Service and the comparison was made with the data
disclosed by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security.

You can find this below.

  The public officials in general service use the
maternity leave the most, followed by the public officials in technical
service. The public officials in contract and special service have the lowest
usage of the maternity leave.

  However, it is not possible to say that the use of the
maternity leave in the general public officials is high. Only 3 % of the entire
public officials used the maternity leave. As for the contract public
officials, only 0.5% of them used it.

  The Article 63 of local public officials act
allows to use the maternity leave “in case it is needed to
raise children under age 8 (When at school, same or below 2nd grade of the
elementary school) or when female public officials get pregnant or give birth”.

  Although it is clearly stated in the
laws, the reality shows that the maternity leave is not properly used. The
situation for the contract public officials is even worse. The public officials
in contract service are an exception even in the world of public officials
which is well known for its good stability and welfare system. What the private
companies and small-sized organizations will be like when even public
organizations are in such conditions?

  There should be no distinctions between
men and women when it comes to child care. Also it is not like there is a
classification between the contract service and general service in the standard
of being parents. But in our society, there are more burdens of child care for
women and more difficulties for the contract service.

  The reality seems distant from child
care and nurturing. But the government is encouraging people to have more
babies. This is an empty claim which is not realistic at all.

  Park, the presidential elect, has
pledged to enhance women’s maternity leave and introduce a father’s month to encourage men’s paternity leave.
Hopefully, the new government keeps the promise and the parents do not have to
suffer heartache from raising children