Almost 90 percent of the nation’s workers who have taken long-term unpaid parental leave have been able to return to the same job, according to a survey released by the Ministry of Labor on Tuesday.
The survey, conducted between May and June last year, questioned workers with a maximum of two years of unpaid parental leave whose term of leave expired by the end of 2014.
It found that 92 percent of respondents said they returned to the same place of work after taking parental leave, with 89 percent returning to exactly the same job.
For those who were unable to return to the same job, the main reason was that their positions had been filled by others, the survey found.
For those who did not return to the workplace, 44.1 percent of those polled chose to stay at home and bring up their children, while 9.4 percent wanted to find work with shorter or more flexible working hours, the results showed.
About 21 percent of respondents said they had difficulty readjusting to the workplace after their return, the survey showed.
The poll found wide support for the government’s policy of allowing employees to apply for extended, unpaid parental leave, with 87.4 percent saying that it is helpful in maintaining stable employment and 74.7 percent saying that it increases women’s willingness to have children.
With 5,549 valid samples, the poll had a confidence level of 95 percent, and a margin of error of plus or minus 1.32 percentage points.
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