A notice at a Seoul child care center informs parents that such facilities across the nation have begun their shutdown on Feb. 27, 2020, due to the surge in COVID-19 infections. The closure will last until March 8. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Roughly 75 percent of dual-income families in South Korea are struggling to find a proper daycare center for their children as the coronavirus is delaying the start of the new school year, a recent survey revealed.
Incruit, a local online job placement portal, conducted a survey between Feb. 24-28 in which 76.5 percent of all respondents said they were facing difficulties with taking care of their children.
The survey revealed that 90.4 percent of dual-income parents with children between 4 and 7 years of age were struggling to take care of their children, followed by those with children of elementary school age (85.7 percent), toddlers less than 3 years of age (75.8 percent), and children older than middle school age (53.7 percent).
Most parents sought help from their own parents, and 36.6 percent of respondents said they were asking their family members to help take care of their children.
Others resorted to taking a leave of absence from work (29.6 percent), working from home (12.8 percent), or going on emergency family leave (7.3 percent).
Another 5.6 percent of respondents even considered quitting their job.
“Some companies allow employees from dual-income families who are pregnant or have pre-school children to work at home, but they only account for a small portion of the whole industry,” said Incruit.
Only 64.9 percent of respondents were willing to use the government-funded emergency childcare program introduced as a follow-up measure for the delays in the new school semester.
Roughly one third had no intention to apply for the program, 25.5 percent of whom explained they felt uncomfortable to be the ‘only ones’ sending their kids to the program.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
