Cabinet approves change to break up parental leave in week increments
Published: 10 Feb. 2026, 17:20
![A family talks with each other on a street in Seoul on Feb. 23, 2025. [YONHAP]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2026/02/10/07c3770f-3756-4947-a554-ea77d1d23f79.jpg)
A family talks with each other on a street in Seoul on Feb. 23, 2025. [YONHAP]
Legislation allowing people to break up their parental leave into one- to two-week blocks to cover school and day care closures has passed a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
The government reviewed and passed 40 bills for promulgation and approved 38 revisions to presidential decrees at the meeting chaired by President Lee Jae Myung. Among them were amendments to the Employment Insurance Act and the Equal Employment Opportunity and Work–Family Balance Assistance Act.
Under the revisions, workers with children aged 8 or younger will be able to take short-term parental leave of one to two weeks once a year.
The short-term leave can be used when a brief absence is needed due to day care or school closures, vacations or similar situations, and is deducted from the worker’s existing parental leave allotment.
The law is set to take effect six months after promulgation, meaning it is expected to be available from around August.
The Cabinet meeting also approved bills to revise acts governing national university hospitals and national university dental hospitals to transfer oversight from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Health and Welfare in order to strengthen regional hub hospitals. The meeting also approved a bill revising the Attorney-at-law Act to protect confidentiality between lawyers and their clients.
![A family walks in Gwanghwamun Square in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Dec. 25, 2025. [YONHAP]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2026/02/10/8c249e8e-6f39-4d06-9ba1-9ef49a0781f8.jpg)
A family walks in Gwanghwamun Square in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Dec. 25, 2025. [YONHAP]
In a move to accelerate “regulatory reform,” which Lee has emphasized, the government also approved a bill to expand the current regulatory reform committee, have it chaired by the president and reorganize it as the regulatory rationalization committee.
It also approved revisions to enforcement decrees to stabilize prices of imported fruit that have risen due to the weak won by cutting tariffs on bananas, mangoes and pineapples to 5 percent through June.
Another decree revision was approved to gradually raise the mandatory employment rate for people with disabilities for employers subject to the requirement from 3.1 percent to 3.5 percent from 2029 onward.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KIM JI-HYE [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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