Commonalities and Differences in Work-Family Reconciliation Policy in Germany, Japan, and Korea: Focusing on the Eligibility of the Parental Leave and Childcare Service Under Three

Background and Purpose

As work-family reconciliation policy, 1) parental leave and 2) public childcare service under three are two key policies. The previous research showed that these policies have affected on reduce motherhood penalties but have some limitations. First, these studies focus on each policy’s factors (i.e., benefit level and period of parental leave, registration rate of childcare service), not concerning on the ‘eligibility’ of policies. Second, previous studies’ method depends on 'multi-country', 'cross-sectional' quantitative analysis, which couldn’t control the invisible heterogeneity (i.e., maturity of the policies, gender norm) and have the possibility to overestimate the policy effect on mother career. Considering these limitations, this study focused on work-family reconciliation policy’s development of Germany, Japan, and Korea which have similar traditionally male breadwinner gender norm and similar maturity of the policies. This study’s question is what are the similarities and differences in the development of work-family policies in Germany, Japan, and Korea?

Methods

Since 1990 1) parental leave and 2) childcare service under three in Germany, Japan, and Korea were analyzed, focusing on the background of introduction, eligibility, income replacement rate, period, and flexibility, registration rate, using from 2005 to 2021 annual reports published by The International Network on Leave Policies and Research, related policy reports, articles.

Results

As commonality in development of the parental leave, all three countries increased the parental leave benefits. Specifically, Germany's parental leave benefits changed from paying a low flat-rate benefit (€300) to 67% earing-related benefit in 2007, and in Japan, the benefit level was continuously raised (1995: 25%, 2014: 67%), and Korea also changed a flat-rate benefit (2001: KRW200,000) to earing-related benefit (2017: 80%). The flexibility of parental leave was introduced to allow part-time work during leave and incentives for father to use parental leave (2007: Germany, 2010: Japan, 2014: Korea). Also, since 1990, childcare facilities under three have expanded in all three countries and the registration rate steadily have increased from 16.8% (2005) to 39.2% (2020) in Germany, from 16.2% (2005) to 41.3% (2019) in Japan, from 38.2% (2010) to 62.6% (2020) in Korea.

However, there are differences in ‘eligibility’ of parental leave and childcare services. Germany introduced parental leave befits as ‘allowance’, but, Korea and Japan have introduced it as a social insurance (employment insurance), only mother with stable regular job can receive it. Regarding childcare service, in Germany and Japan, only the child whose mother are working or seeking employment can use childcare service, but in Korea all children can use the childcare service (no requirement).

Conclusion and implication

In summary, on the development of policies in Germany, Japan, and Korea, commonalities are increasing parental leave’s benefit level and expanded flexibility, expanding childcare service facilities and differences are eligibility of two policies. This study has implications in that established a theoretical foundation for further quantitative research that reveals the effect of eligibility of parental leave and childcare service on mother’s career after giving birth by mother’s work status, and it revealed the need to discuss 'stratification'.