Park Sung-hoon, a 33-year-old software engineer in Seoul, recently took a year-long paternity leave to care for his newborn twins. His wife just returned to work after using up her own leave. 

 “It was a tough decision to take 12 months off because the information-technology business is so competitive and rapidly changing that it is challenging to take such a long leave for developers like me,” Park said.

 Park said he may have difficulty readjusting himself to work when he comes back. But the couple decided to extend the leave to remain their two-year-old babies’ primary caregiver for another year. After that, they plan to seek outside childcare arrangements.

 He is still a rare case in Korea where traditional housewife and bread-earner roles are divided and many men think taking paternity leave is the norm for women.

 But he represents slowly but steadily growing new fathers dubbed “Alpha Dads,” guys who are as serious about the childcare as they are about their work.

 Under the paternity leave system introduced in 1988, the number of new fathers who applied for the leave nearly tripled to 2,293 out of 69,616 parents in 2013 in four years. The corresponding figure was 819 out of 41,732 in 2010, showed data from the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

 The program initially allowed only women to apply for the unpaid leave but men was allowed to it from 1995. In 2001, the government began to provide 200,000 won ($195) a month to a parent who cares for a baby 12 months old or younger. They now receive up to 1 million won a month in financial subsidy for one year, according to the data.

 “The subsidy is not enough to help make both ends meet. But I couldn’t give up the first years of bonding time with my baby,” Kim Jae-won, a Seoul-based journalist in his mid 30s, said. He has three kids and his wife does not make money for living.

 Like in the cases of Kim and Park, young fathers increasingly see leave as essential as they try to balance between work and family. Recognition of the paternity leave is slowly improving at work. 

 “I have two kids. I used the paternity leave for two years. When I applied for the leave for my first kid, I got teased and even insulted at work by traditional fathers and men without children,” said a public official, 39, who asked not to be identified.

 But the utility official said as he set a “good” precedent for his colleagues, young fathers “followed suit or are now considering taking time off for their kids.”

 On top of taking paternity leave, fathers take time to make their voice heard in children's education and participate in open-class and outing programs at schools. 

 Lee Jung-hyun, 42, who works for a gas services company in Seoul and married with two children aged 10 and 13, joined the Smile Daddy Camp held 10 times throughout last year by the Korea Work and Family Foundation (KWAFF).          

 “It was really a great chance to get closer to my boys. I will continue to attend these programs to better communicate with them,” Lee said by telephone.

 Young fathers’ attitude towards childcare has changed a lot in the past decade. But companies and the government lags far behind in giving support as much as parents want them to do, KWAFF spokeswoman Lee Hee-soo said.  

Obstacles to be tackled

 Of things to be improved, lingering stereotypes about a father’s role is the biggest obstacle to be tackled, experts say.

 “Men who put parenting on an equal footing with their jobs still face pressure or resentment from co-workers, mostly traditional fathers who put work before family,” said Hong Seung-ah, a research fellow at Korean Women’s Development Institute (KWDI).

 “Many employers still regard active fathers unprofessional or less dedicated to work. So fathers are reluctant to take a long leave on concerns that they may lose seniority, suffer slowing job promotion, and potentially lose their job.”

 Little doubt, such a stigma at jobs plays against the economy given a strong family bonding often enhances productivity and concentration.

 When it comes to government subsidy, she said the maximum amount of 1 million won is too small to encourage breadwinners’ paternity leave. “The budget for subsidies needs an increase.”

 Korea lags far behind in terms of men’s childcare participation compared to countries such as Sweden and Portugal which mandated leave for fathers, according to a KWDI report. 

 Even big companies such as Hyundai Motor Group and POSCO acknowledged that there are still a “small number” of fathers on paternity leave. They didn’t provide the exact data. Other conglomerates such as Samsung Group and Doosan Group declined to give the related data.

 Sweden was the first to introduce the paid leave for childrearing fathers in 1974. A parent is allowed to use up to 420 days for childcare with an 80 percent a month of his or her salary, it said.

 If high-ranking male bosses take leave themselves, it means the strongest official support for new fathers taking a paternity leave, Gothenburg University Professor Philip Hwang said in a seminar arranged by KWDI last year.