The 'dad bonus system' salary will be increased to match the standard parental leave salary. The dad bonus system is a program that provides salary to the second parental leave taker among parents. It is a previous version of the currently operating '6+6 parental leave system,' which was temporarily implemented until the end of 2022 to promote shared parenting.
This system was initially designed to provide 100% of the regular wage (with a cap of 2.5 million won per month) for the first 1 to 3 months for the second parental leave taker, and then 50% (with a cap of 1.2 million won per month) from the fourth month. However, when employees who received the dad bonus system during the temporary operation period want to use the remaining parental leave at this point, there is an issue where the salary is set at 50% of the regular wage after the fourth month, which is lower than the standard parental leave salary (with a cap of 1.6 million to 2 million won).
In response, the Ministry of Employment and Labor decided to raise the dad bonus system salary to match the standard parental leave salary, in order to enhance equity with other parental leave takers.
This means that a worker who used 3 months of parental leave under the dad bonus system can now receive a maximum of 2 million won per month during months 4 to 6, and a maximum of 1.6 million won per month after the seventh month, instead of previously receiving a maximum of 1.2 million won for 15 months. However, those benefiting from the standard parental leave salary program, such as '6+6', are not affected by this change.
This revision will be retroactively applied to the parental leave period starting from January 1 of this year. The Ministry of Employment and Labor will announce the partial amendment of the enforcement decree of the Employment Insurance Act containing this content for 41 days until July 7. The legislative notice can be viewed on the Ministry of Employment and Labor website or the Republic of Korea Electronic Gazette. Any citizen can submit their opinions via regular mail or electronic mail.