After 16 years managing fund for some of South Koreas more prestigious investment firms, Park Sung-jin needed a break.

So last December, the 48 -year-old did something that had long been taboo in one of the worlds hardest-working countries: He took nearly two months off. Hoping to reconnect with his religion roots, Park camped out in churches and a countryside prayer house to immerse himself in the Bible and other Christian texts.

Now, back at work overseeing$ 8 billion as the head of expending at Mirae Asset Securities Co ., Park says the time away made him a more effective money manager.

The sentences I was able to build during this period helped me focus and build the right decisions, said Park, who previously held senior roles at Meritz Securities Co. and Samsung Asset Management Co. When an employee cant get the rest he or she genuinely needs, its not good for the company or the individual.

Long-term leave is starting to lose its stigma in South Korea, where the population expended more hours working in 2015 than all but two countries tracked by the OECD. Alarmed by weak productivity and record-low rates of childbirth, the nations biggest industries are banding along with policy makers to make it easier than ever for employees to take time off.

Samsung Electronics Co ., Koreas biggest company , now has an optional one-year sabbatical program for employees whove been with the firm for at least three years. KT Corp ., the nations second-largest telecommunications firm by market value, offers six months off after staff reach their 10 -year anniversary, along with up to two years of child-care leave, twice the legal requirement. A record number of Koreans started child-care leave in the first half of 2016, thanks in part to a government-led campaign to improve work-life balance.

These sort of things require more period, but this is a good start and the government is pushing, said Kang Joong-koo, a Seoul-based economist at LG Economic Research Institute. Aging demographics and falling birth rates are serious threats to growth.

Of course, long-term leave isnt cost-free. It involves trade-offs for both companies and workers, and theres no insure employees will be more productive when they come back. Eugene Boo, who took two years off from his chore at a KT in Seoul to raise his first child, says he recommends leave to colleagues, but before they are truly need it for family or self-development reasons.

Family Life

Despite all its benefits, it still means you have a gap year in your resume, said Boo, 40, who examined English while he was on violate and joined one of the KTs most productive teams when he returned in September. You need to have a clear purpose when you sign up.

Koreans who take child-care leave, the more common reason for long-term transgress, still make up a small minority of the workforce. The total number of people who used the benefit since officials started tracking the data in 2001 was about 573,000, or merely 2.2 percent of the current working population.

Still, their ranks are growing. Instances of male child-care leave jumped 52 percent in the first half, while the figure for women increased 2 percent, according to Koreas Labor Ministry. The government has encouraged the practice by increasing financial assistance for male workers who take time off and forming a Work-Life Balance Coalition with major business associations.

Ko Kyu-youn, a 39 -year-old currency trader at KEB Hana Bank in Seoul, says child-care leave is now widely accepted, even in Koreas banking industry.

The bank was fully supportive, said Ko, who took seven months off after her first child and 16 months after her second. Its good to spend time with young ones at ages when parental attachment is very important.

For the government, persuading more working women to have children is a policy priority. With the proportion of Koreans aged 65 and above forecast to more than triple to 40 percentage of the population by 2060, the country requires more newborns to keep the $1.4 trillion economy growing. Korean births from January to July fell 5.9 percent from a year earlier to the lowest level for the period since Statistics Korea began compiling the data in 2000. Marriages also sank to a record on the same basis.

Productivity, meanwhile, has been lackluster despite the countrys workaholic reputation. Korea ranked 28 th among 38 nations tracked by the OECD for dollar-based economic output per hour run in 2014, creating half the output of U.S. workers.

While conclusive statistics on how long-term breakings impact productivity in Korea are elusive, anecdotal proof suggests workers who make use of the countrys new leave policies have returned as guys more efficient employees, according to Kang Min-jung, a researcher at the Korea Womens Development Institute.

I have talked to many companies that offer better work-life balance and they acknowledge it has boosted the employees productivity, Kang said. Their employees became more loyal.

Its an assessment shared by Mirae Assets Park, whose days are busier now that hes dividing day between run, family and the church, where he plays the violin during Sunday services. His employees have a sympathetic ear if they ever need time off.

The CEO gave me his permission without hesitation, and I treat my employees in the same manner, he said. Corporate culture is changing.

Read more: www.bloomberg.com