Preferential Treatment for Civil Servants on Parental Leave or Child Rearing Concerning their Promotion and Evaluation, Increase in the Level of Allowances to the Base Pay, Preferential Assignment of Rental Apartments, and Expansion of Interest-free Loans

- ACRC recommended the Ministry of Personnel Management for institutional improvements concerning promotion and evaluation, finance, welfare, and child-rearing environment

- Encouraging improvements in the private sector through improving the public sector

(21, Mar. 2024, ACRC)

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Ryu Chul Whan) formulated institutional improvement measures aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of parental leave and child-rearing systems for civil servants as part of countermeasures to low birth rate and recommended them to the Ministry of Personnel Management, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and Government Employees Pension Service.

This recommendation was based on the results of a survey* conducted in January 2023 through the People’s Idea Box, which selected providing preferential treatment to civil servants returning to work after their parental leave as a priority task.

* <2024 Public Survey on Key Tasks of Institutional Improvements (Jan. 12 – 25)>, involving 5,966 people, 38.6% of respondents selected countermeasures addressing low birth rate as a key task, People’s Idea Box (https://www.epeople.go.kr/idea)

This recommendation is categorized into four areas, including promotion and evaluation, finance, welfare, and child-rearing environment.

First, regarding the promotion and evaluation, upon their return from parental leave, civil servants will receive incentives, such as work performance evaluations that maintain or exceed their previous ratings. This measure aims to eliminate conventional disadvantages, such as assigning lower ratings for the work performance evaluation to those returned from their parental leave or excluding them from promotion candidates, and partially considering the period of parental leave when determining the transfer limitation period.

In addition, the recommendation included that civil servants arein promotion candidate lists even during their parental leave as they were before taking the leave and ensuring preferential treatment when evaluating promotion, such as reinforcing additional points provided tothose with multiple children. Furthermore, it was recommended to ensure there is no disadvantage in personnel management, such as including the entire period of parental leave when considering their career experiences or determining the transfer limitation period and extending the available period of parental leave.

Second, in the finance area, it was recommended to significantly increase parental leave allowanceto the level of base pay and expand the payment period. It was also recommended to improve the payment system by providing the total amount of parental leave pay during the period of parental leave. In addition, it was recommended to clarify the grounds for applying health insurance deferment and reasons for restricting the payment of performance pay.

Under the current system, a salary is paid during maternity leave, while it is suspended during parental leave, and parental leave allowances are provided for one year, part of which is retroactively provided after returning to work, which places financial burdens on those on parental leave. Many voices are raised by pointing out that this will make raising their children difficult in reality.

Moreover, people can defer their payment of health insurance during parental leave and pay in full upon their return to work, however, there have been cases where they have not received a notice of deferment. In addition, there has been confusion due to different opinions on whether employees on an annual salary system who have used less than 10 months of parental leave out of one year while having used other leave to work less than 2 months are eligible for performance pay. The recommendation reflects complaints received from the frontline of administration.

Thirdly, regarding the welfare area, ACRC recommended redesigning the assessment criteria for tenants of rental housing for civil servants, such as allocating a certain percentage of opportunities to those responsible for child-caring or rearing with a shorter period of their career in public service when selecting tenants and extending the residency period to up to 10 years. Moreover, the Commission recommended significantly easing the burden of housing expenses by proposing loan interest rate cuts, the implementation of interest-free loans, and an expansion of the loan limit to 100 million won.

According to data from the Government Employees Pension Service, as of the end of 2023, the number of tenants in their 20s who signed a contract for public rental housing was 1,279, only accounting for 7.2% of the total number of tenants. With regard to this, ACRC attributes this to the fact that the current criteria for selecting tenants of public rental housing are disadvantageous for younger generations with shorter periods of career in public service, no home ownership, and lacking financial capacity.

Lastly, concerning the child-rearing environment, ACRC recommended measures to ease thecriteria for securing replacement personnel from six months to three months and actively utilize staff from middle-level and low-level positions and retirees with experiences in relevant sectors who can be immediately deployed onsite. Furthermore, the Commission recommended improving environments for returning and transferring for those responsible for child-rearing, such as by enhancing prior notice of procedures for returning to work and preferentially assigning to divisions they want, formulating measures to create family-friendly child-rearing and work environment, such as by extending the use of childcare time and securing designated parking areas for child-rearers.

These recommendations were made in response to multiple complaints, including the difficulties faced by divisions where employees take parental leave in securing replacement personnel and challenges faced by employees returning to work from their parentalleave and child-rearers in adapting to work and balancing it with childcare due to a lack of guidance before their return, such as being transferred to divisions at a long distance or those that people prefer to avoid.

ACRC Vice Chairperson Kim Tae Gyu said, "Low birth rate is no longer an issue exclusive to certain individuals. It is a matter that both the government and the private sector should work together to resolve, which is why we anticipate that the recent institutional improvement measures will beswiftly implemented. We will remain committed to improving unreasonable practices and systems causing inconveniences to the people as well as other matters where a large majority of citizens require improvements."