Families with young children to take top priority for gov't-leased housing under new policy
Korea's Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy announced an additional set of plans on Monday to ease the housing burden for families with young children as the government struggles to address critically low birthrates.Under the new policy, families with children under the age of two will be given top priority in the allocation of government-leased housing.
The government will also remove the size restrictions on public housing for these families. For example, households with three members are currently limited to applying for homes smaller than 50 square meters (538 square feet).
Korea is struggling with demographic challenges as many young people delay or give up on getting married or having babies due to protracted economic slowdown, high housing prices and changing social norms around marriage.
The total fertility rate, which represents the average number of expected births per woman over her lifetime, also hit a record low of 0.72 in 2023, significantly below the 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain a stable population without immigration.
The government previously unveiled a set of measures last month aiming to revitalize births, including loans and tax cuts for families with children.
It has also vowed to crack down on unfair practices in the wedding industry, such as excessive penalties for contract termination and the bundling of unnecessary services.
Korea's antitrust regulator plans to launch an investigation into the contract terms used by wedding businesses in August to address these irregularities.
Based on the research, the government plans to establish standard contract guidelines for wedding businesses within the first half of 2025.
The committee discussed additional measures to encourage more people to have children, including offering monthly subsidies of 1.2 million won ($867) to help small and medium-sized businesses recruit temporary staff to replace employees on parental leave, which would be an increase from the current 800,000 won.
“We plan to promptly carry out follow-up policies so that the people can feel the impact in the near future,” the committee said in a statement.
Yonhap
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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