Maternity Leave · Spousal Paternity Leave
Maternity & Spouse Childbirth Leave
What is maternity leave?
- Both maternity leave and spousal paternity leave are statutory
- Splitting costs between the company-paid portion and employment insurance benefit tiers
- Dismissal is restricted before and after the leave period
What this system really changes on the ground is that 'the HR manager's calendar starts running the day the expected due date is reported.' If you wait for employees to apply on their own, the leave start date, the benefit application deadline, and the timing of replacement staffing all slip at once. Working backward from the due date to set the leave start and return dates up front is the HR manager's first task, and it decides how hard staffing and payroll settlement will be.
Knowing the exact numbers is the starting point. Maternity leave is 90 days, or 120 for multiple births, and at least 45 days (60 for multiple births) must fall after the birth. The first 60 days (75 for multiple births) are paid, and at companies eligible for priority support, employment insurance maternity leave benefits cover the whole period, but the company must make up any amount above the monthly cap. For spousal paternity leave, the February 2025 amendment substantially extended the length, the number of installments, and the claim deadline counted from the birth date, so check that your internal rules don't still use the pre-amendment wording.
Mixing it up with related programs leads to wrong guidance. Maternity leave is for childbirth itself, while parental leave is a separate program for raising the child afterward. Reduced working hours during pregnancy cut 2 hours a day in early and late pregnancy and are separate from the leave, and in cases of miscarriage or stillbirth a different leave applies depending on the week of pregnancy. If you explain in the first consultation that each one has its own application documents and funding source, no one has to reapply because of conflicting guidance.
The most common mistake is still telling employees the old, shorter number of days for spousal paternity leave. If an employee believes that, takes only a few days, and learns about the amendment later, the claim deadline has passed, the remaining days are lost for good, and the company loses trust. Substituting annual leave or treating the entire period as unpaid can also be unlawful. People also often forget that dismissal is prohibited during maternity leave and for 30 days afterward; ending a contract or forcing a reassignment in this window leads straight to a dispute. The leave periods and benefit caps change often, so recheck them against Ministry of Employment and Labor guidance at the start of each year.
Inwoo LeeLeadership, communication, and performance management expert
Jongmu KimCorporate talent development and job skills expertKorea’s Labor Standards Act sets maternity leave for pregnant employees, including how much of it must be taken after the birth and a longer period for multiple births. The Equal Employment Opportunity Act sets paternity leave for spouses. Benefits are also paid through employment insurance.
Company A is an auto parts manufacturer with 140 employees. Production staff work two shifts, so one absence means adjusting the line, yet its internal rules still told employees that spousal paternity leave was '3 days,' as they had through 2024. The problem surfaced in March 2025, when a quality team employee asked, 'I heard others in our industry take 20 days.' (Hypothetical example)
- When Manager Kim in HR pulled the past year’s nine childbirth-related applications, 5 of the 6 employees who had taken paternity leave had used only 3 to 5 days before returning to work.
- With advice from a labor law firm, the company rewrote the paternity leave clause and claim deadline in its work rules to match the amended law, and reported the changes at the regular April labor-management council meeting.
- Manager Kim went to see the 2 employees whose claim deadlines, counted from the birth date, had not yet passed and told them, 'It's not too late, so split up your remaining days.' Both applied to take them in separate blocks.
- Together with the production management team lead, they built a shared calendar that shows an automatic alert 6 weeks before the due date, so the leave start date, the date a replacement joins, and the employment insurance benefit filing date all appear on one screen.
- Six months after rollout, average spousal paternity leave taken rose from 4 days to 17, late maternity leave benefit applications fell from 3 to 0, and overtime caused by line vacancies dropped from 12 hours a month to 3.