The Child-Care Leave of Absence for Female Government Employees to Be Extended up to Three Years

The government will extend the child-care leave of absence to three years from current one year to three years for female government officials from next year. And it plans to guide all ministries and departments of the central government to appoint at least one female government official as their directors.

The Presidential Commission on Government Innovation (Chairman: Cho Chang-Hyun, former vice president of Hanyang University) established yesterday the improvement plan of the personnel policy for female officials enforcing next year in the 10th meeting at the grand meeting room of the Ministry of Planning and Budget.

The government, first of all, decided to strongly recommend the appointment of female directors by the end of next year to the 19 ministries and departments which currently do not have any female directors. And it plans to increase the number of middle-ranking female directors to be at least 10 percent by 2006.

In addition, the government decided to extend the child-care leave of absence for two more years and to increase the pay promotion counting of the first year`s leave of absence from current 50 percent to 100 percent. Moreover, the government plans to extend the maternity leave from current 60 days to 90 days, as of private companies, and will pay 100,000 won per month during the first year of the leave.

The government also decided to post at least one female government official in the personnel divisions and committees of every ministry and department for the personnel management of female government officials, and to give a short-term training opportunity to every female government officials at least once a year.

Because this policy is decided and enforced just before the presidential election of next year, some people criticize the pork-barreling characteristics of the policy in relation to the votes of female government officials.

yhchoi65@donga.com