Worrisome Baby Bust

Families Give Birth to Children; State Brings Them Up

Wherever she goes these days, Health-Welfare Minister Jeon Jae-hee says, ``Nothing is more patriotic than giving birth to a child.'' She has to: Korea's birthrate fell to 1.19 last year, less than half the global average and the lowest among the 30 OECD member states.

According to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, the rate could even drop below 1.0 this year if the nation's gross domestic product expands less than 2 percent from 2008, which economists say is all but inevitable.

What this would lead to, if left to continue in the years ahead, is terrifying indeed. Labor productivity would drastically deteriorate due to a rapidly aging workforce, which in turn would sharply reduce consumption, investment and savings, destroying the economy beyond repair. In the worst-case scenario, Korea could become a ``one-to-one society,'' in which one economically active person has to support one retiree and when the nation's foundation starts to crumble.

Consequently, it came as little surprise that President Lee Myung-bak instructed his aides Thursday to provide families with three children or more with housing benefits, such as priority in home purchases and even discounts. Aside from its practicability, as in how to force private builders to differentiate prices, Lee's initiative was welcome, particularly in that the chief executive has finally turned his attention to this ``national emergency.'' But he must go further.

In fact, the government's childbirth policy is one of its biggest administrative fiascoes. The government, which introduced strict birth control in the 1960s, should have put a brake on it in the mid-1980s, when the birthrate began to show signs of a steep decline. It's only after almost another two decades passed that officials belatedly awoke to the danger of a stagnating or even shrinking population. If for no other purpose than making up for the lost time, the government should redouble its efforts.

Minister Jeon says the government should either drastically raise its subsidies to families, as is the case of France, or open far wider to immigrants, like Germany did. We think the nation needs both, albeit to less drastic extents.

If the Korean government is to shoulder most childbirth and childbearing costs, it will require an additional budget of 19 trillion won, far exceeding the ministry's total yearly spending. But it's not impossible, provided the government drops its river refurbishment projects, which would cost 14 trillion won, and improve public education policy, the failure of which has given rise to a 20 trillion-won private tutoring market.

More fundamentally, it should ensure bearing and rearing children is no impediment to Korea's increasingly ambitious working mothers, not only by drastically improving childcare facilities but also by abolishing disadvantages in terms of pay and promotion. The sharp expansion of daycare and teaching facilities and resultant demand for construction and service industries would prove to be a far better stimulus than digging riverbeds.

A far more open-minded and non-discriminating immigration policy is a must, but when it comes to cross-border human movement, Korea should rectify its shameful past of putting children up for overseas adoption. As long as Seoul turns a blind eye to its babies ``virtually sold'' overseas, the accumulated number of which has totaled 120,000, leaders' calls for patriotism and sense of pride in being Korean couldn't ring more hollow.

Most of all, the government should change the country into a more livable society, particularly for the younger generation, instead of turning it into arena of limitless competition and exam hell, as the incumbent administration does. If six out of every 10 adolescents dream of living abroad, parents might feel guilty about giving birth to more children.

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