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With less than one child per woman, South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world. If current trends continue, the Asian country risks seeing its population halved by the end of the century. Aware of this challenge, the South Korean government is multiplying initiatives to boost the birth rate. The latest one aims to facilitate childcare for young children.
South Korea has launched a program to facilitate the arrival of foreign nannies in the country. The initiative has notably allowed about 100 nannies from the Philippines to settle in the Land of the Morning Calm to work there, according to BloombergThe Yoon Suk-yeol government plans to bring 1,200 babysitters to South Korea by mid-2025.
The arrival of these nannies is supposed to make life easier for South Korean parents. Indeed, many complain about not being able to find childcare for their children. Due to a lack of space in childcare facilities or resources, some mothers decide to interrupt their careers to look after their children until they start school. A forced choice that weighs on their professional development in a country where people live to work, and which discourages women from motherhood.
Indeed, many South Korean women do not see themselves as parents, for personal, political or societal reasons, and envisage a life without children. More than 60% of 25-45 year-olds say they do not want to have children, according to an Ipsos survey relayed by Korea Economic Daily Global EditionTheir desire not to have children is disturbing in a society where the parental norm remains very strong, even if it is increasingly accepted by the younger generation.
South Korean authorities hope the arrival of foreign nannies will provide some relief to parents in the country. But the move has been met with skepticism among locals, with many pointing to the prohibitive cost of hiring a babysitter from abroad. The Seoul Metropolitan Government estimates that families will spend 2.38 million won per month (about $1,800) to hire foreign nannies for eight hours a day, according to Bloomberg. That’s half the average monthly income of a South Korean household, according to the financial news agency, which cites figures from Statistics Korea.
The program is one of several measures announced by the Yoon Suk-yeol government to try to boost the birth rate. Since 2006, the country has spent nearly 280 trillion won (200 billion euros) on public policies to try to stop the population decline.