Stay-at-home fathers hit record last year

A father and his daughter look at installed exhibits at the National Hangeul Museum in Yongsan District, central Seoul in October last year. [NEWS1]

Fathers who left the labor force to raise children hit a record high last year at 16,000.

According to Statistics Korea's latest data, last year saw a 37.4 percent increase in the number of economically inactive fathers dedicating their lives to parenting, leaping from 12,000 in 2022.

Last year’s count was the all-time high since the statistic was first tracked in June 1999.

The figure nearly tripled over a decade, hopping from 6,000 in 2013 to 9,000 in 2019.

As the number of newborns in the country has decreased, men taking on parental duties has increased.

While the total number of people who left the workforce to take care of their children shrank from 1.42 million in 2013 to some 856,000 last year, the ratio of men dedicating their lives to raising kids relatively increased.

The phenomenon can be attributed to societal change, which is encouraging more men to take paternity leave, leading an increasing number of husbands and fathers to also share the parenting burden.

By age group, full-time fathers in their 40s accounted for more than half of the demographic, followed by around 4,600 fathers in their 30s representing 28.8 percent.

Last year, some 840,000 women went economically inactive for parenting, a 14.7 percent drop from the previous year.

Over a decade, the count of full-time mothers nearly halved. In 2013, some 1.47 million mothers stayed home and took care of their children. The number fell to 1.26 million in 2017 and some 984,000 in 2022.

Still, full-time mothers far outnumber their male counterparts nearly 50 times over, meaning that parenting continues to be heavily fall on women in Korea.

Mothers in their 30s were the most prominent age group, claiming 59.1 percent of all economically inactive mothers. The runners-up were non-working mothers in their 40s.

The economically active female population is on the rise.

In 2011, less than a majority — 49.8 percent of all women — were part of the working population. The ratio rose to 50.3 percent and 53.5 percent in 2013 and 2019, respectively.

Last year’s female working population ratio was record-breaking at 55.6 percent.

According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in 2022, Korea’s female labor force participation rates fell slightly below the OECD average of 56.4 percent, marking 54.6 percent.

The Federation of Korean Industries also said the economic participation of Korean women ranked near the bottom of 37 OECD member states in 2021.

The government plans to announce measures to bolster female economic activity this month to boost the country’s economic growth.

BY LEE JI-YOUNG, LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]