A major disruption of child care services was averted Wednesday, but families of some 775,000 children enrolled at privately run child care centers were affected by staff taking leave collectively to protest government child care policies.

According to the Ministry of Welfare, 1,989 privately run child care centers participated in the walkout, but all remained open. The group representing more than 14,600 private child care centers had earlier announced the impending three-day protest, urging parents to keep children at home if possible. While a major disruption did not take place as feared, families suffered inconvenience as they scrambled to find alternative child care or took the day off from work. Parents who had no choice but to send their children to child care centers were anxious that the understaffed centers would not be able to provide the usual standard of care.

For families of children enrolled at privately run child care centers, threats of center closures have become an annual rite, with the centers claiming that this is the only way they can get the public’s attention on the issue and force the government to come to the negotiating table.

At issue are the government subsidies and better working conditions and compensation for the teachers. The group representing the private child care centers claims that the government has effectively frozen the subsidy for newborns to 2-year-olds in the budget for next year despite its earlier pledge of a 3 percent increase. The annual wrangling between the central government and local governments over who would pay the 300,000 won ($260) subsidy for 3- to 5-year-olds poses serious problems for the child care centers, the group claims.

In a society where child care is still thought to be the primary responsibility of mothers, many working moms felt great exasperation and panic at the news that child care centers would close for three days. Faced with a low birthrate, the government urged women to have more children, promising that it would help take care of them. However, as the continued controversy over child care subsidies illustrates, the government is not delivering on that promise in a satisfactory manner. Families who believed in the government’s promise feel betrayed, and many young women and men may spurn the government’s call to have more children.