Korean Spouse's Maternity Leave and Fertility Treatment Leave Calculator

When a wife gives birth, her husband is entitled to 20 days of spouse's maternity leave, and the law makes the whole period paid. Anyone undergoing fertility treatment can take 6 days of fertility treatment leave a year, of which the first 2 are paid. "Paid" does not mean "paid by employment insurance". The employer owes the ordinary wage as a matter of principle; if the employer is a priority-support enterprise, employment insurance covers that wage up to a ceiling on the employer's behalf. Enter your monthly ordinary wage, the type of employer and the days you take, and this calculator splits the result into what insurance pays, what the employer must make up, and the total you receive over the leave.

The total is the same in every case: your ordinary wage for the paid days. What changes is who pays it. The insurance benefit has a ceiling set by ministerial notice, so the higher your wage, the sooner the insurance share stops at the ceiling and the employer picks up the rest. If the employer is not a priority-support enterprise, the insurance share is zero and the employer pays all of it.

An expectant father who wants to know what will land in his account during the leave and whether it comes from the company or from insurance. HR staff use it too: at a priority-support enterprise, the employer's paid-leave duty is discharged to the extent the insurance benefit is paid, so the calculator gives the employer's true cost directly.

Spouse's maternity leave can begin 50 days before the spouse's due date and cannot be taken more than 120 days after the birth. It can be split into up to 3 periods, which makes the calculator useful when planning to take some days right after the birth and the rest during postnatal recovery. Fertility treatment leave is usually taken a day at a time around procedure dates, and knowing in advance that days beyond the first 2 are unpaid avoids a surprise on the payslip.

Spouse's maternity leave is governed by 남녀고용평등법 제18조의2: paragraph 1 sets 20 paid days, paragraph 2 releases the employer from its paid-leave duty to the extent an insurance benefit is paid, paragraph 3 sets the window from 50 days before the due date to 120 days after the birth, and paragraph 4 allows 3 separate periods. Fertility treatment leave comes from 제18조의3제1항 of the same act, which sets 6 days a year with 2 paid. The insurance benefit rests on 고용보험법 제76조제1항제2호 and 제3호, both of which confine it to employees of priority-support enterprises. The ceilings are set by Ministry of Employment and Labor notice: ₩1,684,210 for the 20 days of spouse's maternity leave and ₩168,420 for the first 2 days of fertility treatment leave.

The calculation runs like this. Divide the monthly ordinary wage by 30 for the daily wage, and divide the notice ceiling by the paid days for the daily ceiling. The lower of the two is what insurance pays per day; multiply it by the days actually taken or the paid days, whichever is fewer, and that is the insurance benefit. At a non-priority employer it is zero. The daily wage times the paid days, less the insurance benefit, is what the employer must make up, and the two together are the total received over the leave.

The calculator's default is an employee of a priority-support enterprise on a monthly ordinary wage of ₩4,000,000 taking all 20 days of spouse's maternity leave. The daily wage is ₩4,000,000 divided by 30, or ₩133,333, and the daily ceiling is ₩1,684,210 divided by 20, or ₩84,210. Since the wage exceeds the ceiling, insurance pays ₩84,210 a day for 20 days, exactly the ceiling of ₩1,684,210. The employer makes up the difference between 20 days of the daily wage, ₩2,666,667, and the benefit: ₩982,457. The total received is ₩2,666,667. The ceiling bites from a monthly wage of ₩84,210 times 30, or ₩2,526,315, so anyone earning more than that sees the insurance share stop at ₩1,684,210.

If the same person works for a large enterprise, the insurance benefit is zero and the employer pays the whole ₩2,666,667. The total is unchanged. For fertility treatment leave taken for all 6 days, only 2 are paid: insurance pays ₩168,420, and the employer makes up ₩98,247, the gap to 2 days of the daily wage at ₩266,667. The remaining 4 days can be taken but carry no wage.

The most common misunderstanding is that a large employer means no pay for spouse's maternity leave. Only the insurance benefit is missing; the leave itself is paid, so the employer must pay the full ordinary wage, and failing to do so is unpaid wages. The reverse mistake happens at priority-support enterprises, where an employer sometimes treats the arrival of the insurance benefit as the end of its obligation. The employer is released only up to the amount the benefit actually paid, so the gap to the ordinary wage remains the employer's to pay.

Missing the deadline is another frequent error. Spouse's maternity leave cannot be taken more than 120 days after the birth, and if it is split, the last period must still fall inside that window. Many people also assume all 6 days of fertility treatment leave are paid. At present only the first 2 days are paid; from 2026-11-27 the paid part rises to four days, but the ceiling for the extra two days must come from a new notice, so until then this calculator uses 2 days. The current name of the leave dates from 2026-09-18; before that it was called spouse's birth leave. Older forms and guidance using the old name refer to the same entitlement.