The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) concluded that it was discrimination against male employees for the public corporation Grand Korea Leisure Co. (GKL) to allow only female employees to use its child care leave system.
According to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on the 4th, a GKL employee filed a petition arguing that the company's implementation of an unpaid "child care leave system" for employees raising children ages 6–8 or in grades 1–2 of elementary school, while limiting eligibility to female employees, constituted unjust discrimination against male employees in the same caregiving situation.
GKL told the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that, in reality, caregiving burdens are concentrated on women and the risk of career interruption is focused on women, and that it introduced the additional unpaid child care leave system, beyond the statutory leave framework, through labor-management agreement to address this issue.
GKL also said that because no wages are paid during use of the child care leave system and promotions or positions are not automatically guaranteed, it is not a method that restricts or excessively reduces rights needed by male employees. The company added that if the child care leave system were expanded equally to all employees, there is concern that, given the institution's characteristics of operating a 24-hour, year-round, three-shift system and multiple business sites, large-scale vacancies could occur among essential personnel.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Committee for Remedying Discrimination reached a different conclusion. The NHRC assessed that while it is desirable for GKL to operate a child care leave system separate from the statutory parental leave, limiting eligibility to female employees alone risks reinforcing traditional gender role stereotypes. It said this constitutes discrimination because it does not align with a gender-equal caregiving culture or the value of co-parenting pursued by the current legal order.
Accordingly, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) recommended to the GKL president to gradually and step by step expand the future scope of eligibility to male employees as well, so that the child care leave system does not restrict the caregiving rights of male workers and workers in diverse family forms.