한부모가족 자녀양육을 위한 법제 개선방안

Abstract

The number of single-parent families has been increasing in Korea, and the single-parent families have difficulties in economic activities and child rearing. To prepare the settlement measures for the single-parent families from the perspectives of social integration, it is imperative to grasp the actual situations on child care of single-parent families and to examine the problems of the related legislations and policies. Therefore, this paper aims to look into the present conditions of child care through the 2015 research on the actual condition of single-parent family conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, and to suggest the improvement measures on Single-Parent Family Support Act (hereinafter SPFSA) and Act on Enforcing and Supporting the Payment of Child Rearing Expenses (hereinafter AESPCRE) by investigating the main contents and problems of those legislations. According to the research findings, to support single-parent families’ child rearing, the legislation improvements should be realized to expend the support targets in the SPFSA, and the paradigm to support single-parent family should be switched from the single-parent family with low income to the overall single-parent family. In particular, it needs to be revised that the entry of overall single-parent families to enter a childcare center for single-parent families should be ranked first as well, and the educations should be mandatory to promote understandings and to increase social awareness for single-parent families. In addition, the AESPCRE needs to be revised so as to secure the child support expense effectively. For instance, it should be enabled to collect the information to secure the child rearing expense without the consent of the obligor of child support, the National Basic Living Security Act has to be positively examined, and the measures not to calculate the child rearing expense as the single-parent’s income in the light of single-parent’s earned income.