The most effective way to address working moms’ concerns about child care is to have their companies operate an on-site nursery school, given that parents prefer day care facilities to be in the workplace.
But companies are reluctant to set up nurseries for employees because of the financial costs involved. It takes about 1 billion won on average to build a day care center. On top of that, wages have to be paid to staff the centers.
Furthermore, the current regulations on the operation of nursery facilities are very strict. An on-site day care center should be located between the first and fifth floors of an establishment where the parents of the children work.
A company that intends to operate a nursery with a capacity of 50 or more children is required to build an outdoor playground, a requirement tough to meet in urban areas.
For these and other reasons, many companies that are required by the relevant law to operate an on-site day care facility simply choose to ignore it and pay the fines instead.
Under the current law, companies should run an on-site nursery school in each establishment where more than 300 female workers or 500 regular employees work. But of the 919 establishments across the nation that belong to this category, fewer than half operate their own day care centers.
The government has been far from enthusiastic about enforcing the law in light of the difficulty corporations have in following it. Now, it is planning to relax the regulations to facilitate the establishment of workplace nurseries.
According to news reports, the government intends to ease the rules on the location of on-site nurseries, allowing them to be built outside of work establishments. It also plans to allow companies to build a playground indoors for facilities accommodating more than 50 children.
At the same time, it will increase the subsidies provided for companies to build workplace day care centers. Currently, the maximum subsidy is 200 million won per nursery. It also plans to increase wage subsidies for teachers.
The government’s move is realistic. The impractically tough regulations on workplace nurseries need to be softened.
Recently, the government has decided to expand public day care centers as parents prefer them to private ones. But it takes time and money to expand public facilities. So while pushing to build more public institutions, the government needs to encourage private companies to set up on-site facilities, which are even more preferred than public ones.
In promoting workplace child care centers, there is one thing the government should heed. It needs to make sure that small and medium-sized companies get the necessary support to run nursery facilities on their own or jointly.
