The number of working South Koreans who used their parental leave reached nearly 100,000 in 2018. Among them, the number of men taking child care leave surged nearly 47 percent on-year, data from Statistics Korea showed.

Last year, the number of workers who used parental leave marked 99,199, up 10.1 percent from the previous year.

Of them, 82.2 percent were females, a jump of 4.4 percent on-year. Only 17.8 percent of the male workers used their paternity leave, but the figure soared 46.7 percent, in the given period.

On Wednesday, the Cabinet approved a law revision to allow both parents to take paid child care leave simultaneously starting Feb. 28, as part of the measures to boost work-life balance and the birthrate.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)