Heo Seok: "Working Moms, I Will Greatly Reduce Childcare Burden"

Jeonnam's First Workplace Mom Center Established, Full Support for Daycare Meal Tray Cleaning

Alleviating Childcare Burden for Dual-Income Couples to Address Low Birthrate Issue

[Suncheon=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Hyung-kwon] Heo Seok, a prospective candidate for re-election as mayor of Suncheon (Democratic Party), has pledged policies aimed at alleviating the work and childcare burdens of dual-income couples to help address the low birthrate issue.

First, he plans to establish the first-ever Working Mom Support Center in Jeonnam to provide more systematic support for dual-income families facing high work and childcare burdens.

This center will conduct education on child-rearing for spouses (working dads) and raise awareness among men about childcare. It will also visit workplaces such as companies to provide family-friendly education, fostering a family-friendly workplace culture.

Additionally, the center is expected to help reduce childcare burdens and address the low birthrate issue by offering temporary childcare services for working moms' children, counseling on childbirth difficulties, and support with house cleaning and laundry.

The daycare meal tray washing service currently involves a specialized company collecting, washing, disinfecting, and delivering trays used by children at daycare centers. The full usage fee, equivalent to 8,500 KRW per child per month, will be fully subsidized.

Currently, most daycare centers either wash and disinfect trays themselves or parents wash them at home and send them back to the daycare.

This process risks recontamination, loss, and damage, creating inconvenient and unhygienic conditions. However, using a tray rental company would increase the financial burden on parents.

Candidate Heo Seok stated, “By providing various practical supports to working moms and dads exhausted from work and childcare, we will offer emotional stability, reduce the burden of raising children, and improve job satisfaction, thereby laying the foundation to overcome the low birthrate problem.” He added, “The meal tray washing service is also expected to ease the workload of daycare staff managing trays and relieve the economic burden on parents.”

Heo Seok has already announced childcare policy pledges such as providing 1 million KRW for postpartum care and reducing the number of children per class in daycare centers. During the 7th local government term, he realized pledges related to childbirth, including opening a public postpartum care center (scheduled for this December) and supporting health checkups and nutritional supplements for pregnant women, demonstrating ongoing commitment to childcare and low birthrate issues.

Meanwhile, candidate Heo Seok is from Haeryong-myeon, Suncheon, graduated from Suncheon High School and Seoul National University’s Department of Economics, and has served as director of the Labor Issues Research Institute at Dawn and co-chairman of the Jeonnam joint election campaign committee for presidential candidate Moon Jae-in.

In the 2018 Suncheon mayoral election, he was the only Democratic Party mayoral candidate elected in the three cities of eastern Jeonnam and is currently serving as mayor of Suncheon in the 7th local government term.