![\"Kim](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/news-p.v1.20260903.22a2b8c281d24017be4e3cbfa16983ec_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Hanwha")
Kim Shin-young (right), a manager at Ourhome, poses with her newborn twins after receiving 20 million won in childcare support in July. \/Hanwha M&S<\/p>\nKim Shin-young (right), a manager at Ourhome, poses with her newborn twins after receiving 20 million won in childcare support in July. \/Hanwha M&S<\/p>\n
Hanwha Machinery & Service Holdings (0220W0), known as Hanwha M&S, said the number of families receiving its Childcare Companion Grant has surpassed 500, a sign that the program introduced to support work-life balance and improve childcare conditions is taking hold.<\/p>\n
A total of 513 households across the company’s Tech and Life Solutions divisions have received the grant, Hanwha M&S said on the 3rd. The Life division accounted for 374 households and the Tech division for 139. The figure is nearly double the 280 households recorded in January, when the program marked its first anniversary, an increase over eight months.<\/p>\n
The Childcare Companion Grant pays 10 million won (about $7,200) to employees who have a child, with no limit on the number of births. It was introduced in January last year at eight affiliates including Hanwha Galleria and Hanwha Hotels & Resorts, under the direction of Kim Dong-sun, president of future strategy at Hanwha M&S, and later expanded to 16 companies including Hanwha Vision and Ourhome.<\/p>\n
Ourhome had the most recipients with 174 employees, followed by Hanwha Hotels & Resorts with 91, Hanwha Semitec with 49, Hanwha Vision (489790) with 46 and Hanwha Galleria (452260) with 38.<\/p>\n
The benefit applies to employees posted overseas as well. Kim Gun-jo, head of Ourhome’s U.S. operations, received the payment in Los Angeles. “Medical and postpartum care costs in the United States are more than twice as expensive as in Korea, which is a heavy burden, but thanks to the company’s support both mother and child recovered quickly,” Kim said.<\/p>\n
Recipients said the money has gone toward practical needs such as housing and strollers. Kim Shin-young, a manager at Ourhome who received 20 million won after giving birth to twins in March and is preparing to buy a new home, said the grant “was a great help at a time when I had many worries because lending rules are gradually tightening.” Ryu Jung-hyun, an assistant manager at Hanwha Galleria, said she recently bought an expensive stroller she had not dared to consider before. “Feeling the financial burden after childbirth made me realize firsthand how substantial and welcome the company’s childcare support is,” Ryu said.<\/p>\n
Internal response has been positive. In a survey of the 513 employees who received the grant, 99% said the payment provided practical help in balancing work and family. Notably, 95% said the grant had a positive effect on their consideration of having another child, up 10 percentage points from the same survey a year earlier.<\/p>\n
“As we have shared in the childbirth and child-rearing of employees at 500 families, we have come to appreciate the importance of work-life balance,” a Hanwha M&S official said. “We will continue to pursue various ways to walk alongside our employees so that both the staff and the company can grow.”<\/p>\n
Separately, the number of babies born in South Korea in the first half of this year was 145,804, up 15.4% from the same period last year and the largest percentage increase on record, according to the national statistics agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kim Shin-young (right), a manager at Ourhome, poses with her newborn twins after receiving 20 million won in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[71799,71800,355,10811,354,55077,10813,16204,22438],"class_list":["post-141237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hanwha","tag-childcare-companion-grant","tag-corporate-childcare-benefits","tag-hanwha","tag-hanwha-galleria","tag-hanwha-group","tag-hanwha-ms","tag-kim-dong-sun","tag-ourhome","tag-work-life-balance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}