For years, South Korea has been sinking billions to reverse a trend that will cost the country dearly. The population is shrinking, too few people are having children. This also affects the economy and the pension system. President Yoon Suk-Yeol’s government is now proposing some controversial measures. These include exempting men under the age of 30 with three or more children from compulsory military service, increasing child benefit in the first year of birth or abolishing the minimum wage for domestic help from abroad. This is reported, among other things, by the British newspaper “Guardian”. Critics accuse the government of “modern slavery,” activists speak of discrimination against women.
South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world at 0.84 births per woman. According to the Federal Statistical Office, in Germany it is 1.53, the OECD average (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) was 1.59 births per woman in 2020.
The problem has existed for decades, but no government action has been effective enough to change it. President Yoon Suk-Yeol said at a meeting that 200 billion US dollars had been spent on this over the past 16 years, but all these measures had “failed”. In the coming months, the Conservative government is expected to unveil a strategy. But the measures are mainly met with criticism.
So far, the increase in childlessness has primarily been justified by economic factors. Rents and real estate prices are rising in South Korea, education sometimes costs money. But the problem goes deeper. Activists denounce the social position of women in particular and speak of discrimination in a statement: “Without solving the root cause of ‘low fertility’, no woman will suddenly give birth to a child, even if exemption from military service is presented as an advantage. “
The criticism: Liberating men from military service would favor men in particular. On the other hand, women in South Korea still do most of the care work, such as raising children and doing housework, and they will not relieve them. The idea of excluding domestic help from abroad from the minimum wage also met with criticism. Wee Seon-Hee, spokeswoman for the opposition Justice Party, described the idea in a statement as racial discrimination and “modern slavery”.
At the same time, working conditions make it difficult for families to give time for family planning. South Korea has one of the longest working hours in a comparison of the industrialized nations worldwide. Only two weeks ago, the government wanted to increase the maximum working week from 52 to 69 hours, which was overturned due to loud protests from the younger generation.
But the country also has particularly bad working conditions for women. In an OECD comparison of industrialized nations, South Korea is in last place when it comes to gender pay equality. There, the so-called gender pay gap is 31.1 percent. For comparison: the OECD average is twelve percent, Germany is 14.2 percent. Activists from the Goyang Women’s Association also criticize this: “What we need is not exemption from military service, but a society in which women’s careers are not interrupted even after childbirth.”
In addition, South Korean society makes it almost impossible for single parents or homosexual couples to have children or raise them alone. So far, South Korea has not recognized same-sex partnerships. National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo even proposed in 2022 to increase the birth rate by “curing” homosexuality through harmful measures such as so-called conversion therapies. In Germany, these therapies are banned in 2020 because they are proven to be harmful and lead to more discrimination.
In general, if the birth rate averages 2.1 children, the population of a country is not shrinking. The entire European Union has been below this value since the 1970s. Other industrial nations are also trying to counteract the trend. Japan, for example, pays new parents one-time payments of around 2900 euros, Germany is trying to expand childcare.
Sources: Federal Statistical Office, “Chosun”, Goyang Women’s Association, Justice21, OECD, “Guardian”, CNN, Federal Agency for Civic Education
