Last year, the number of men receiving parental leave benefits exceeded 40,000 for the first time. Since surpassing 10,000 for the first time in 2017, the number of men receiving parental leave benefits has steadily increased, and last year, for the first time, men accounted for over 30% of the total recipients.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family published data titled 'Looking at Men's and Women's Lives Through 2025 Statistics' on the 2nd.
According to the data published by the ministry on that day, the total number of parental leave benefit recipients as of last year was 132,535. This represents an increase of 5.18% compared to the previous year (126,008).
The number of people receiving parental leave benefits has been consistently increasing. Starting with 87,339 in 2015, it rose to 89,795 in 2016, 90,122 in 2017, and 99,199 in 2018, surpassing 100,000 for the first time in 2019. It increased to 112,038 in 2020, slightly decreased to 110,555 in 2021, and then rose again to 131,084 in 2022.
By gender, the number of men has increased significantly. While only 4,872 men received parental leave benefits in 2015, this number rose to 41,829 last year, an increase of about 8.5 times. During the same period, the proportion of men among those receiving parental leave benefits rose from 5.6% to 31.6%.
Looking at the size of the business sites, both men and women were mostly employed in establishments with more than 300 employees. In the case of men receiving parental leave benefits, 52.6% were found to be working in businesses with more than 300 employees. For women, the figure was 36.1%.
Furthermore, among women, the majority worked in establishments with less than 10 employees (20.5%), followed by those with 10 to 29 employees (16.2%), 30 to 99 employees (14.5%), and 100 to 299 employees (12.7%). For men, the order was 100 to 299 employees (14.7%), less than 10 employees (12.6%), 30 to 99 employees (11.3%), and 10 to 29 employees (8.8%).
Additionally, the proportion of career-disrupted women among married women was recorded at 15.9%, a decrease of 5.8 percentage points compared to 21.7% in 2015. Last year, the number of single-person households was found to be 8,045,000 households, accounting for 36.1% of all households. Among men, the highest number of single-person households was in their 30s (21.8%), while for women it was in their 60s (18.7%).