More Women Quit Work to Care for Children

The number of working women who quit their jobs to raise children has risen around 10 percent this year. Statisticians say the main reason is that children born in the boom year of 2007, the Year of the Golden Pig, started elementary school.

Statistics Korea on Wednesday said 1.98 million women quit their jobs in order to have babies or raise children as of April this year, up 1.1 percent from to the previous year.

The number who quit work once they got married fell 8.4 percent to 822,000, but the number who stopped working to have babies or after childbirth rose 9.7 percent and 5.4 percent, to 627,000 and 436,000.

Statistics Korea said that 2007 saw more births than usual because it was believed to be auspicious, which led to 40,000 more children starting elementary schools this year. More mothers therefore decided to quit work to help their kids through the first years of school.

Statistics Korea added some 162,000 women quit their jobs to take care of sick family members.

This raises the total number of women who quit their jobs this year to 2.14 million, or 22.4 percent of the married female population.