According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, one in three workers who took parental leave in the first half of this year were fathers.

From January to June, 69,631 workers began receiving parental leave benefits, excluding civil servants and teachers not enrolled in employment insurance. This represents a 3.2 percent increase from the same period last year, which had 67,465 recipients.

By gender, 47,171 women (67.7 percent) took parental leave, a slight decrease of 1.8 percent from last year. Meanwhile, the number of men taking parental leave surged to 22,460, marking a significant 15.7 percent increase from the previous year.

The proportion of men among first-time recipients reached 32.3 percent in the first half of this year, the highest recorded to date. This increase is largely attributed to the “6+6 Parental Leave System,” which allows both parents to take leave within the first 18 months of their child’s birth, receiving 100 percent of their regular salary for the first six months.