- 저출산 해결을 위한 법정책 - ‘일하는 엄마’를 위한 근로관계법적 시각에서의 접근

Abstract

The modern society’s low birth rate has risen as a serious social problem which causes decrease in producing population and increase in aging population that eventually leads to the aging population’s burden on the producing population. In Korea, problems arising from low birth rate are considered as social problems that bring many negative effects socially and economically thus a national solution is urgently needed. There seems to be several factors causing low birth rate which has become a serious social danger, but the major cause of decreasing birth rate is believed to be financial burden that occurs while raising children. Therefore, it is speculated that the way to overcome our society’s critical situation involving low birth rate is to guarantee married women’s economic activities and their stable income. Many advanced countries that suffered from law birth rate before Korea did, has implemented diverse kinds of policies encouraging increase of birth rate. In other words, the government is making efforts to encourage birth and protect working moms with various programs and systems such as cash support, tax reduction, childcare support, flexible work hours, maternity leaves, child allowance system, flexible work hours and place (working at home) and part-time hours and to balance working mom’s work and family by enacting laws to provide flexible working hours. It is urgent that Korea needs to review and review the current law on the related issues in order to encourage birth, improve quality of life and strengthen the national competitiveness. Upon systems established to protect working moms in Korea such as the labor standard law, employment insurance law, equal employment law, Act on Equal Employment of Support for Work-Family Reconciliation, infant care act, and labor relations law, are analyzed in depth, good programs and systems should continue to be well implemented but the ones that need improvement should be corrected or revised so that these systems will be harmoniously integrated and balanced with other policies of the nation. Also, it is essential to reorganize related labor relations laws to establish culture of labor market with gender equality, keeping pace with the current trend of increasing rate of Korean female’s participation in economic activities. In order to make it happen, each laborer’s healthy civic awareness that protects working mom’s rights, need to be established in society along with strategic support from the nation and the society.