Seoul, South Korea
DailyExpertNews
—
Baby fair season is here again in South Korea. Busy, noisy affairs held in cavernous conference rooms where hundreds of vendors try to sell expectant parents everything they could possibly want for their new bundle of joy – and a host of other things they didn’t know they needed.
But this is a shrinking business and the customer base is shrinking.
South Korea recently broke its own record for the world’s lowest fertility rate. Figures released in November showed that the average number of children a South Korean woman will have in her lifetime has fallen to just 0.79.
That is well below the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population and even low compared to other developed countries where the rate is declining, such as the United States (1.6) and Japan – which with 1.3 reported their own lowest grade ever.
And it’s a problem for a country with an aging population facing a looming labor shortage to maintain its pension system.
The problem is usually attributed to economic factors that have kept young people from starting a family – high real estate prices, the cost of education and greater economic anxiety – but successive governments have proven unable to solve it, no matter how much money is thrown at it. At the.
Critics say this is a sign that the problems go deeper than economics and that a different approach is needed. Whether the government listens is another matter.
During a visit to a daycare center in September, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol admitted that more than $200 billion has been spent over the past 16 years to boost the population.
But since taking office in May, his government has come up with few ideas to solve the problem other than to continue on the same footing: setting up a committee to discuss the issue and promising even more financial support for newborns. A monthly allowance for parents with babies up to 1 year old will increase from the current 300,000 won to 700,000 won ($230 to $540) in 2023 and to 1 million Korean won ($770) in 2024, according to the Yoon administration.
The public’s skepticism that Yoon has more of a handle on the issue than his predecessors was only heightened by the president’s sometimes clumsy reporting.
During his visit to the nursery, Yoon expressed surprise that babies and toddlers were not cared for at home and seemed to suggest that it was normal for 6-month-old babies to be able to walk, leading to criticism that he was no longer allowed access. touch (the average age at which babies can walk is about 12 months).
Many experts believe that the current “throwing the money” approach is too one-dimensional and instead requires ongoing support throughout the child’s life.
At a recent baby fair, Kim Min-jeong, whose second child is expected this month, browsed the stalls. She dismissed the government’s pledge of more money, saying: “They have changed names and merged allowances, but for parents like us there are no more benefits.”
The problem she is facing, she said, is that she has not been able to work since the birth of her first child because she and her husband cannot afford private childcare.
Government-funded daycares are free, but a handful of scandals in recent years involving caregivers beating babies have scared many parents off. Although the cases were minimal, they were widely publicized and the CCTV footage was moving.
Also, would-be parents stand in the way of a myriad of issues that are more social than economic in nature and are likely to persist no matter how much money is splashed around.
Among them are what might be called the unwritten rules of parenting.
While having a baby is very much expected of married couples in South Korea, society still frowns on single parents. IVF treatment is not offered to single women, according to official hospital figures.
“We still have a very puritanical approach to single mothers,” said law professor Cho Hee-kyoung, who writes a newspaper column on social issues.
“It’s like they did something wrong by getting pregnant out of wedlock…why do you have to be able to raise a child within a marriage?”
Meanwhile, couples in non-traditional partnerships also face discrimination; South Korea does not recognize same-sex marriage and regulations make it difficult for unmarried couples to adopt.
Lee Jin-song, who has written books about the trend of young people choosing not to get married or have a baby, said policies to increase the birth rate should embrace more than just the traditional idea of marriage between a man and a woman.
“I’ve been thinking about how heterocentric and normality-oriented discussions are in the traditional sense of marriage…[it]excludes people with disabilities, disease or poor reproductive health,” Lee said.
Lee pointed to a common joke in South Korea: “If you’re not dating by the time you’re 25, you turn into a crane, which means if you’re single, you become non-human.”
She said society sees her, and others like her, as selfish for not conforming to traditional expectations of marriage and children, “neglecting their duties to society for the sake of their happiness only.”
Lee emphasized the pressure of having children on women in a patriarchal society that is slowly evolving. “Marriage, childbirth and childcare require too many sacrifices from women in a patriarchal society, especially in the past decade. So they begin to explore the possibility of living well without getting married.
Professor Cho agreed, saying there is a persistent social expectation for the father to sacrifice for the business and for the mother to support the family, even if she also works.
“I know so many couples where the women actually make more money than the men, but when they come home, it’s the women who have to do the housework, take care of the kids and support the man emotionally.”
Meanwhile, spouses who want to be more involved in raising children find that the business culture in South Korea doesn’t always allow it.
While parental leave has increased on paper, few feel comfortable taking it in full.
Back at the baby fair, Kim’s husband Park Kyung-su said he hopes to help with his second child, but “there is no special understanding or treatment of work for having a young child. I can use my free time, but it makes me uncomfortable because I want good feedback at work.”
There is a widespread fear that the employees who get promoted are rarely the ones who put family first.
Lee Se-eun, who has two boys, ages 3 and 5, said she would welcome more help from her husband, but he is rarely home on time.
“It would be nice if companies recognized employees with babies, for example, to exclude them from dinners or nights out,” she said.
In South Korea, work doesn’t stop when the office closes for a day. On the contrary, there is a culture of after-hours ‘team building’ that should not be missed.
Lee worked in a brokerage firm before launching her own start-up, but she hasn’t worked in seven years and feels there was no option to continue her career because she didn’t want to send her boys to daycare.
“Raising a child is a very valuable, meaningful and very good thing from a personal point of view, but sometimes it feels like it’s not valued in society,” Lee said.
