As of 2024, over 150 South Korean elementary schools find themselves with zero new students, and as Korean reporters put it, “accelerating the path to national population extinction.”1 South Korea’s fertility rate has been decreasing steadily since 2015, going from 1.24 children per woman to a worldwide low of 0.65.2 Alarmed in the face of a national crisis, the South Korean government has been scrambling to provide solution policies, mainly attempting to provide financial support for struggling families. However, they miss the fundamental root of the birth rate issue, instead only contributing to the problem rather than solving it. The gradual shift in the perception of social obligations among women in South Korea coupled with the financial burdens of high child-rearing costs and property prices is the underlying cause of the plunging birth rate. It is only through targeted socio-economic support that relieves women from their financial burdens and changes their negativity towards childcare that this rapid depreciation curve can be broken, so the streets can be bustling with children again.
Before discussing the effectiveness of the South Korean government’s solutions, it is essential to understand the causes of the declining birth rate over the last few years. The traditional Korean society is deeply influenced by Neo-Confucianism, placing strict gender norms on the population and obligating adherence to such standards.3 Women historically had limited access to education, and were instead often confined to household duties after marriage and childbirth. However, as the economy developed and the living conditions of Koreans improved, the educational attainment level of women also increased. By 2013, the rate of college enrollment among Korean women surpassed that of men: nearly three-fourths of women were enrolled in higher education, compared to less than two-thirds of men.4 The rise of education among women consequently led to greater social advancements, to such an extent that over 70% of women between 25 and 34 were active in the workforce by 2020.5 This increase in educational opportunities for women raised their dissatisfaction with the discriminatory and restrictive natures of Korean social norms, and their social advancements into a wide range of industries led them to realize the potential they held in the workforce. Young Korean women therefore became much more vocal than previous generations in challenging the country’s traditional norms that restricted them from making equal contributions to society and put more emphasis on achieving levels of corporate success rather than giving birth and tending to children.
The issue does not end here. As time continuously shifts young women’s values away from childbirth and household management, South Korea remains a suffocative and inconsiderate socio-economic environment for working families, mothers in particular. South Korea, even with the progress made over the past decades, still has some of the largest labor market gender gaps among OECD countries, both in terms of earnings and job opportunities.6 Given that they already face such disadvantages in the workforce, women struggle to resume their careers after childbirth and the consequent maternity leaves.7 Even when a mother successfully returns to her career after her maternal leave, Korea’s infamous work culture demanding 69-hour workweeks and discouraging absences makes it nearly impossible for them to manage work and childcare at the same time.8 This is only worsened by Korea’s skyrocketing property prices over recent years. As of 2024, only 13.2% of young South Koreans aged 19-34 held home ownership amid rising housing prices, with the time taken for a household to purchase their first home estimated at 7.4 years.9 Not only are housing prices soaring, Korea’s notoriously competitive education system pushes the costs of raising children to rank highest in the world, at 7.79 times the GDP per capita.10 Such economic phenomena are leading the younger population, who are already struggling to achieve financial independence with limited wages, to turn their backs on the idea of giving birth and starting families.
The main provisions the South Korean government has implemented in mediating these problems are through financial means. They are providing financial incentives for couples to have children: stipends of 1 million won ($750) to parents with children under the age of 1 and extending parental leave to 18 months. The government has invested a total of 280 trillion won ($210 billion) over the past 16 years through such policies,11 yet birth rates have continued to plunge. While well-meaning, these financial provisions have a limit to which they can solve the issue, and to this point, their reforms have been destitute. Though directly providing money required for childcare can save families from immediate struggles, it does not target the structural problems of Korean society. The subsidies can only partially address the influence of rising housing prices on the birth rate crisis, as people hold persisting concerns of the long-term financial costs of raising children after they are no longer eligible for subsidies. Coupled with the continuance of competitive workplace cultures, the country is currently pouring money into a bucket full of holes, promoting temporary solutions and in turn worsening an economy marked by an inflation rate of 2.57% and a 3.1% rise in the consumer price index.12 By putting yet more money into the economy through such subsidies, this inflation is only getting worse for those who need help the most.
What’s needed, then, is the tackling of the rudimentary difficulties that exist in Korea that are not within the reach of financial solutions. First, there’s the problem of the overarching work-oriented culture in Korea, with extremely long working hours and few after-hours for people to tend to their children. The government can provide improved daycare systems across the country. Though it does subsidize existing daycare centers throughout the country to make them more affordable to people, many of them only provide limited service until late afternoon and are thus unable to take the burden off of young working families. Instead of providing direct subsidies to existing daycare centers, it should devote more attention to establishing new childcare systems that operate for longer hours. For families who work abnormal hours or hold unique requirements for their childcare, the government should also provide the option of nannies. Currently, the low supply of nannies in South Korea makes it cost 2-3 million won a month to hire one.13 Considering South Korea’s yearly increasing migration rate of 0.429 per 1000 population,14 the government can incentivize the employment of foreign nannies, taking the burdens off of working families.
The rising house prices are also an issue that should be dealt with greater attention. Providing financial support for and increasing mortgage loans to young couples is not enough to mitigate the sharp influence the skyrocketing property prices have on birth rates.15 The government should widen their investments from young people to housing industries, subsidizing them and thereby helping lower property costs. It is really only when the financial hindrances of raising children are reduced that the government can begin turning the population’s tide towards giving birth. Considering the above implementations, the burdens of childcare will be mitigated, instilling a greater sense of positivity in the younger population’s perception towards parenthood.
In the meantime, the government should support those who are still willing to give birth but are unable to due to complications, such as biological ones. Consider oocyte cryopreservation, the procedure where women can freeze their eggs for their future use, or donation. This process is currently sidelined in South Korea: by requiring spousal consent, the law restricts those eligible for egg freezing to married women. There is also little awareness of such procedures among the population. Egg freezing can not only minimize the prevalence of infertility but also provide younger women who are not yet ready to have children with an alternate option for future childbirth. South Korea should thus subsidize and promote this procedure, effectively easing the declining birth rate.
