Korean Maternity Leave Benefit Calculator

This calculator works out how much you receive during maternity leave in Korea and where each part comes from. Pay during the leave is split between employment insurance and the employer, and the split depends on whether the employer is a priority-support enterprise. Enter the type of birth, the employer category, your monthly ordinary wage and your insured period, and you get the employment insurance benefit, the top-up the employer must pay separately, and the total for the leave.

The two parts are shown separately rather than as one total for a practical reason: if money is missing, the party you claim it from differs. The employment insurance part is claimed from the job centre; the employer part is wages the company must pay. Knowing which is which lets you ask for exactly what is missing.

Employees expecting a child who want to plan their income during the leave. Whatever your salary, the insurance benefit has a ceiling, so it will not match your normal pay, and you need the size of the shortfall to budget the period. It also serves as a check afterwards on whether the amount that arrived in your account was right.

HR staff use it too. If the company is not a priority-support enterprise, it must pay the full ordinary wage for the first part of the leave, and even a priority-support enterprise owes the difference when the ordinary wage exceeds the ceiling. The calculator gives the figure to put through payroll. Anyone with fewer than 180 insured days cannot claim the benefit at all, so recent hires should check that condition first.

Leave length is set by 근로기준법 제74조제1항: 90 days for a single birth, 100 for a preterm birth and 120 for multiples. 제4항 of the same article makes the first 60 days (75 for multiples) paid leave at the employer's expense, less whatever employment insurance pays for that period. 고용보험법 제75조 requires at least 180 insured days to qualify, and 제76조 says that outside priority-support enterprises the insurance pays only the days beyond the employer-paid period: 30 days for a single birth, 40 for preterm and 45 for multiples.

The daily benefit starts from the monthly ordinary wage divided by 30. If that is below the floor, the monthly minimum wage divided by 30, which is ₩71,896, it is lifted to the floor; if it exceeds the ceiling set by the Ministry of Employment and Labor notice, it is cut to the ceiling. The notice sets ₩6,600,000 for 90 days, ₩7,333,330 for 100 days and ₩8,800,000 for 120 days, all of which come to ₩73,333 a day. With only ₩1,437 a day between floor and ceiling, anyone earning more than ₩2,200,000 a month receives the same amount.

The insurance benefit is the daily amount times the number of days paid. The employer's share is the ordinary wage for the paid period minus what the insurance paid for that same period; outside priority-support enterprises the insurance pays nothing in that period, so the whole ordinary wage falls on the employer. The ceiling of ₩1,684,210 for 20 days of spousal birth leave sits in the same notice but is not covered here.

Take someone with a monthly ordinary wage of ₩3,000,000 at a priority-support enterprise, having a single birth. The daily wage is ₩100,000, but the ceiling of ₩73,333 applies, so the daily benefit is the ceiling. The insurance pays all 90 days, a benefit of ₩6,600,000. The employer owes the ordinary wage for the first 60 days, ₩6,000,000, less the ₩4,400,000 the insurance paid for those days, a top-up of ₩1,600,000. The total for the leave is ₩8,200,000, which is 91.1% of the ₩9,000,000 the same period would normally pay.

If the same person worked for a company that is not a priority-support enterprise, the insurance would pay only the last 30 days, a benefit of ₩2,200,000, and the employer would pay the full ordinary wage for the first 60 days, ₩6,000,000. The total is the same ₩8,200,000, but the employer's share is far larger. For the recipient the money is the same; the party to claim it from is not.

The biggest misunderstanding is that the state pays all 90 days. Outside priority-support enterprises the insurance covers 30 days and the rest is the employer's. If the employer does not pay it, that is unpaid wages, to be claimed from the company rather than the insurance. Next is assuming a higher salary means a higher benefit. The ceiling is a modest ₩73,333 a day, so the benefit stops growing above ₩2,200,000 a month, and the employer makes up the difference only during the paid period.

Confusing the ordinary wage with take-home pay is also common. The ordinary wage is what is paid regularly and uniformly; bonuses and expense allowances are often excluded, so it can be less than the total on the payslip. Entering your length of service as the insured period is another error: the insured period counts days for which pay was received, so any unpaid stretch makes it shorter than your tenure. Finally, there is a filing deadline. Miss the window after the leave ends and the benefit is lost, so it is safer to prepare the paperwork during the leave.