Yoon government reveals new strategy to raise birth rates

Politics

Published: 28 Mar. 2023, 18:48 Updated: 28 Mar. 2023, 21:09

Yoon government reveals new strategy to raise birth rates

President Yoon Suk Yeol, center, addresses Korea’s low birth rate problem at the first meeting of the Presidential Committee on Ageing Society and Population Policy at the Blue House in central Seoul on Tuesday afternoon. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The Yoon Suk Yeol government revealed a "select and concentrate" strategy to tackle Korea's dismally low birth rates as the president presided over a meeting on responding to the fertility problem Tuesday afternoon.

This comes as Korea's total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime, came to a 0.78 last year, the lowest ever.

Yoon presided over a meeting of the Presidential Committee on Ageing Society and Population Policy at the Blue House, attended by experts and ministers of health and welfare, economy and finance, education and other related agencies.

This is the first time the president directly presided over a meeting of the committee since November 2015.

The government spent some 280 trillion won ($215 billion) on its low birth rate budget over the past 15 years, but critics say the spending has yielded few results.

The committee tried to tackle what might have gone wrong.

Reflecting on the dismal results despite setting a comprehensive government plan and spending an "astronomical budget" over the past 15 years, Yoon said, "We need to calmly re-evaluate the low birth rate policy and figure out why it failed based on scientific evidence."

The committee said it will focus on a "select and concentrate" strategy, meaning that policies with high demand will be highlighted, while those that aren't needed will be readily discarded.

It selected five key areas for its low birth rate response: childcare and education; balancing work and childcare; housing support; child rearing expenses; and health and happiness.

"We need to come up with bold measures and intensively invest the necessary finances so that the joy of bearing and raising children and the goal of self-realization can be satisfied at the same time," said Yoon.

Yoon noted that the low birth rate issue is "intertwined complexly with social issues" such as welfare, education, jobs, housing, tax and women's pursuit of economic activities and "requires approaches from various angles."

He called for thorough support for childcare, education, flexible work hours, parental leave, housing stability and infertility.

Yoon noted that it is difficult to solve the low birth rate issue at the government level alone and emphasized that the private sector should participate in creating an environment conducive to raising children.

Some issues to address include providing the means for high-quality care and education to children, expanding childcare and day care options and creating practical conditions for balancing work and raising children, including addressing the low use of maternity or other parental leave.

Other tasks are addressing blind spots, structural reforms and raising awareness and strengthening the basis for policy implementation.

"The low birth rate issue is an important one on the national agenda, and the government and the private sector must work together to solve it," said Yoon. "What is most important is to give people the trust and confidence that the state is responsible for our children. I believe that it is the country's basic duty to help children grow up in a positive way."

The government said that it plans to expand support for households with multiple children by broadening the definition to include "two or more children" as compared to three or more in the past.

Those who can benefit from reduced working hours for child care will also increase, with the maximum age being increased from parents of second graders, or eight-year-old kids, to sixth graders, or 12-year-olds.

It plans to increase national and public day care centers by 500 annually and encourage the expansion of services to Saturday through various incentives.

The parental allowance introduced this year of 700,000 won per month until the child turns one will be increased to 1 million won. Those will toddlers between 12 months and 24 months are also eligible for smaller stipends.

Regarding housing, 430,000 units will be supplied to newlyweds by 2027. The government will also review a plan to ease the income bars for housing purchase and jeonse (lump-sum deposit) for newlyweds.

On March 8, Yoon ordered the committee to prepare "bold and definite measures for low birth rates that can be felt by the people," signaling he will personally focus on addressing this issue.

The committee on Tuesday described the government's previous low fertility policy, the Fourth Basic Plan for Ageing Society and Population Policy which was announced in 2020, as "abstract and unclear."

The plan, which set the population policy for a five-year period beginning in 2021, focused on "realizing a sustainable society" focusing on improving individual quality of life, creating a gender-equal and fair society and adapting to demographic change.

The committee found that of the 280 trillion won invested in responding to the low birth rate from 2006 to 2021, direct support for children and families, especially involving pregnancy, birth and childcare where demand is high, was insufficient.

The committee also took issue with the fact that many of the 214 tasks last year regarding responding to low birth rates appeared unrelated to the issue. This includes an allocation of 97.8 billion won budget for increasing personnel expenses for military officers, 302.5 billion won for industry-academia cooperation for universities and the 8.3 billion won for cultivating new artists and cultural experts.

"Even if the low birth rate problem cannot be solved, I believe that it is the country's basic duty to at least ensure that children born in Korea can grow up bright and healthy," said Yoon.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]