Students greet their principal at the entrance of Incheon Dongsu Elementary School in Bupyeong District, Incheon, on Aug. 11 as they return to school after summer vacation.YONHAP
Korea’s government-supported child care service appears to be worth the wait. The problem is that for many families, that's quite the wait.
Families using the service — with the caregiver sent directly to the families’ homes — receive about 16 hours of care a week and pay an average of 357,000 won ($250) a month out of pocket. Users gave relatively high marks to the cost and quality of the service, but many said long waiting times need to be addressed.
The numbers were reflected in the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family’s 2025 survey on child care services released on Thursday. The survey was conducted for the first time after it received approval as an official statistical survey from the Ministry of Data and Statistics in 2025.
The survey covered 4,000 households that use the child care service, 3,000 households eligible for the service, 3,000 child care workers and 228 child care centers with 250 employees. Eligible households were defined as those with children aged 12 or younger.
The government-supported child care program sends caregivers directly to homes with children aged 12 or younger when families need help filling gaps in child care. The service costs 12,790 won per hour in 2026, with government subsidies determined based on household incomes.
The survey found that 95.1 percent of households using the service came back for more. Repeated users received care an average of 4.6 times a week, or 16 hours and 24 minutes in total. Families paid an average of 357,000 won a month out of pocket.
Overall satisfaction with the service averaged 3.9 out of 5. Users gave the highest marks to caregivers’ skills and the quality of their services.
A group of children participate in an extracurricular activity in Gyeonggi on March 6.NEWS1
The survey also found strong interest among families that were eligible but did not necessarily use the service. Approximately 57.6 percent of households with children aged 12 or younger said they intended to use it in the future. Affordable costs were the most commonly cited reason, at 43.2 percent. Another 30.6 percent cited trust in the service’s quality because it is a government-run program.
The service was satisfactory on both ends.
Child care workers provided an average of 118.8 hours of care per month and took home an average of 1.61 million won a month after taxes. Their commitment to the job remained strong. A whopping 91.1 percent said they wanted to continue working “as long as they physically could.”
However, there’s a catch: getting the care in the first place.
When asked what needed to improve most, families put recruiting more caregivers to cut waiting times at the top of the list. Higher government subsidies for service costs came next, followed by more government-subsidized care hours.
Students in an elementary school in Nowon District, northern Seoul cheer after a ceremony marking the start of summer vacation on July 22.NEWS1
The numbers show just how long that wait can be. Nearly four in 10 users — 39.5 percent — waited at least a month to be matched with a caregiver. Long matching times were the most commonly cited difficulty, at 25.4 percent.
The government now wants to close that gap.
Authorities plan to ease the financial burden on families and improve working conditions for caregivers. The government also plans to make the service more readily available to double-income families, single-parent households and families with multiple children, which tend to face heavier child care burdens.
“The survey allowed us to identify the areas that the public most wants to see improved in the child care service,” Minister of Gender Equality and Family Won Min-kyong said. “We will continue to develop measures to improve the system so that families in need of care can use the service when they want it.”
BY JUNG JONG-HOON [lee.jiwon10@joongang.co.kr]
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.
