By Lee Cheun-heui

Every now and then Korean newspapers write an article about Korea's rapid transition toward an aging society and such articles always sound an alarm telling us that without some measurable increase in the birthrate to offset the increase in the average age of Koreans, Korea's economic vitality will be sapped considerably.

Yes, of course an increase in the number of senior citizens along with the reduction of the workforce will create a serious burden financially on the younger generation, but the Korean government seems to be overlooking a potentially explosive situation that an aging population may bring.

People do live longer nowadays, thus creating the so-called aging population problem, but we cannot assume that people are living longer and in good health. In fact, it would be more prudent for the Korean government to assume that the majority of the senior citizens 20 or more years from now will require serious medical attention.

So if there is a potential explosion in the number of patients that require serious and long-term medical care, is Korea equipped to handle such a situation? Are hospitals, hospices, nursing homes and retirement homes being built to accommodate the number of needy patients that are sure to come in the years ahead?

Even more serious is the possible lack of qualified health care staff. Unless Koreans suddenly take an acute interest in becoming doctors specializing in the treatment of diseases common among seniors, or health care workers willing to visit and assist senior citizens, either in the nursing home, or at the senior's own home, to help them eat, bath, and clothe, Korea could be looking at a grim scenario where plenty of senior citizens are bed-ridden at home and unable to go to the toilet or prepare a meal because there is nobody there to take care of them.

The Korean government can offer all kinds of financial aid and other perks in order to motivate married women to have, hopefully, multiple children, but, sadly, such incentives aren't good enough to convince women, particularly those with a good education, pedigree and most important of all, earning power.

It's more likely that the younger generation, fearing the prospect of paying an immense amount of taxes to take care of the all the aforementioned social care programs, will flee to look for greener pastures in foreign countries.

So what to do about it? The Korean government won't admit it, but the only alternative left is to open the immigration doors wide open for health care workers, mostly from Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Japan, which is in a similar predicament to Korea, is now starting to realize that it needs to rely on foreign health care and social workers to tackle the oncoming aging population, and is, albeit slowly, beginning to accept the arrival of nurses from the Philippines.

And will the Korean government realize that even a lump sum of 6 million won is nowhere near enough to entice married women to have children. Why? Because the cost of educating a child all the way through college will cost many, many times more than that and even with a college education, it's still not an ironclad guarantee that a lucrative job is waiting.

Imagine seeing a CNN report on the plight of the elderly in Korea without decent health care sometime in 2050.

President Lee Myung-bak can spend all his waking hours trying to find ways to promote Korea as an advanced nation, but unless it provides for its seniors and nurtures its children, no society can really be considered "advanced."

The writer is a financial consultant in Yongsan, Seoul. She can be reached at bogartyankee@yahoo.com.