Korean couples fear the costs of child care — but most still plan to have kids

A family visits the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Jan. 31. [YONHAP]

The financial burden of child rearing weighs heavily on Korea's childless married couples. Such couples expect children to cost an average of 1.4 million won ($1,051) per month, according to a recent report.

Couples with higher income expected the cost to be higher, according to the report from the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, titled “Child Allowance as a Policy Response to Demographic Change in Korea,” which surveyed 300 married people, including 150 men and 150 women, last June.

A plurality of those polled — 37 percent — estimated the cost of raising a child to be between 1 million to 1.5 million won per month, taking over the biggest proportion among the responses.

A total of 29 percent predicted the cost to be more than 2 million won, while 18.7 percent of guesses fell between 1.5 million and 2 million. Only 15.3 percent expected the total to fall under 1 million won per month.

Higher-income households also expect child rearing to cost more.

Those earning more than 8 million won per month projected an average monthly cost of 1.58 million won, while those earning under 4 million averaged 1.31 million won.

Couples who owned their homes also tended estimate higher monthly expenses than those who rented.

A total of 93.7 percent felt that child care costs would be a financial burden. Among them, 58.7 percent felt that the expenses would be “somewhat burdensome,” while 35 percent responded “very burdensome.”

Nevertheless, almost all of the survey's respondents plan to have children in the future. Just 1.7 percent said that they would not reproduce at all. A full 33.3 percent plan to have one child, 24.7 percent want two, and 2.7 percent plan for three. The remaining 37.7 percent remain undecided.

Couples in which the female spouse is younger are more likely to want children, per the report.

More than half, or 51.5 percent, of couples that included a woman over 35 had not yet made a decision on the matter.

The respondents had all been married for fewer than five years, and were thus potential recipients of the government's child allowance policy, which provides parents with children younger than eight with a monthly payment of 100,000 won per child. The program was introduced to address Korea's plummeting fertility rate, which hit a historic low of 0.72 last year.

The researchers concluded that the child allowance policy has helped to reduce the financial burden of child care and encourage more couples to have children.

They did not find, however, that it encouraged couples to have children any earlier.

BY HAN JEE-HYE, KIM JI-YE [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]