To encourage couples to have more babies, South Korea should move toward a better work-life balance by reducing the standard workweek from 40 to 35 hours, a recent study suggests.
The Gyeonggi Research Institute, in a report released Tuesday, linked South Korea’s declining total fertility rate -- which fell from 2.1 births per woman in 1983 to 0.72 in 2023 -- to a culture of overwork. World Bank data from 2022 put South Korea’s fertility rate at 0.78, the lowest of any recognized country.
The GRI report argues that the current maximum 52-hour workweek, introduced in 2018, fails to provide sufficient work-life balance for young families.
The current system dictates 40 standard working hours per week plus up to 12 hours of overtime, but before this cap, workers could be on the clock for up to 68 hours per week, including weekends.
Koreans want to work an hour less each day
A 2024 survey of 1,000 workers aged 20 to 59, conducted by GRI, found that excessive working hours and workload were the biggest obstacles to balancing work and family. Some 26.1 percent of men and 24.6 percent of women cited this factor as their main challenge, with the percentage rising to 39.3 percent for women in their 20s and 31.5 percent for women in their 30s, which are key years in family planning.
The survey also found that workers ideally want to work about one hour less per day. On average, men work 8.3 hours per day and women 7.5 hours, while their preferred working hours are 7.2 hours for men and 6.5 hours for women.
The demand for shorter work hours was even more pronounced among dual-income households in their 30s, a key demographic for childbirth and parenting. In this demographic, both men and women wanted to reduce their workdays by approximately 84 to 87 minutes respectively, indicating that long hours are a major deterrent to starting a family.
To encourage change, the report suggests public institutions lead the way in adopting shorter workweeks, and even including some amount of commuting time as paid working hours.
“The (approximately) one-hour gap between actual and desired working hours is most significant among working couples with children. Lowering the legal workweek to 35 hours is a necessary step,” said Yoo Jeong-gyun, a research fellow at GRI.
Big business wants more work, not less
The report comes at a time when South Korean policymakers are considering the introduction of more “flexibility” in the legal workweek system for strategic industries, such as semiconductors, which would effectively extend working limits rather than shorten them.
Earlier this month, the South Korean government and the ruling party proposed a law that would exempt high-income semiconductor R&D employees from the 52-hour workweek cap. Companies like Samsung Electronics argue that longer hours are essential to compete with global competitor Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., where workweeks of 70 to 80 hours are reportedly common.
However, this Monday, political parties failed to reach a consensus, leaving the exemption proposal stalled for now.
A recent survey by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Korea Industrial Technology Association also found that 75.8 percent of corporate R&D departments have reported declining performance since the 52-hour cap was introduced in 2018.
Many firms also face R&D labor shortages, with 82.2 percent saying they lack workers due to resignations, increased workloads and difficulty hiring under the 52-hour cap.
Some companies want more flexible work rules, with 69.4 percent supporting self-managed hours through labor agreements and 32.5 percent favoring an additional eight hours of overtime for R&D teams.
"Rigid working hour limits hurt R&D competitiveness. Companies need more flexibility to stay ahead globally, while still protecting socially disadvantaged workers from excessive hours, as originally intended," said Lee Jong-myeong, head of KCCI’s industrial innovation division.
mjh@heraldcorp.com
