How to reverse falling birthrate
Koreans have apparently shifted their attitude, putting more emphasis on material well-being and prosperity rather than on family as what makes life fulfilling. Unfortunately, along with these changes in attitudes came the extraordinary decline in Korea’s total fertility rate to 0.78, the world’s lowest.
In order to address the problem, we see an outpouring of big ideas repeated every day in the media and in the pledges of policymakers. These ideas include work-life balance; welfare; accepting various forms of families; housing supply for newlyweds; and acceptance of multicultural families and immigrants, to name a few. Yet those decisions and actions are nothing new and remain ineffective. Most of them are just repetitions of what has been implemented in advanced European countries for 30 or 40 years. Now is the time we must give a sobering assessment of those past policies for tackling low birthrate. And we are at a point when we actually can do the job.
There are two factors behind Korea’s low birthrate. The first is the changed age and changed structure of society, where the country’s social atmosphere tends to discourage childbirth. Second, social and economic mechanisms make it increasingly difficult to have a child even if people intend to do so. Some big hurdles are late entry into the labor market, getting married at an older age, unemployment, and the costs of housing, childcare and education.
For this reason, policy measures to counter the low fertility rate must be approached in diverse ways considering the various causes of low birthrates. With due regard to the first factor, we should come to terms with the change of the times; we may have to accept the new normal -- the general reluctance to marry or have kids, and have to seek a solution under the assumption that the low birthrate will continue.
To resolve the problem, simultaneous efforts should follow to immediately increase the new core productive population. To do this, it is feasible to increase female participation in the labor market. Currently, the female employment rate in Korea remains at about 55 percent, which is around 17 percent lower than the average male employment rate of 72 percent. In the long term, what is critical is to create a labor market environment where childcare and work are no longer in conflict and instead balanced. If women’s employment rate increases, the total fertility rate likely increases as well.
Realistically, it is difficult to expect to bring any major changes to various factors of low fertility (youth employment, housing instability, work-family incompatibility, gender conflict, high cost of childcare, etc.). Therefore, we forecast it would be extremely difficult to get out of the "trap of low fertility." We have to admit that, despite desperate attempts to lift the fertility rate, our efforts to boost the birthrate have been futile and unsuccessful. With this realization, we should focus, rather, on some realistic measures to help prevent a looming crisis under the sustained low birthrate.
According to Statistics Korea, women do about three times more housework than men. More than half of the respondents of the survey indicated perceptions of inequality in housework, such that domestic work should be divided more equally. The percentage of men doing their fair share of housework is still low. The decline in birthrates can never be remedied without correcting the highly unbalanced distribution of housework and childcare. Therefore, companies should try to provide full support to working parents in each and every stage of child-rearing, from the earlier stages of pregnancy and childbirth to the stage of returning after parental leave.
Also, especially for those working parents in small- and medium-sized enterprises, it is important to make sure that they access childcare leave. Along with this, the effectiveness of parental leave benefits should be constantly reviewed from mid- and long-term perspectives. The parental leave system should be expanded so that it is fully accessible to all parent workers. For now, parents are entitled to have parental leave for one year after childbirth. In fact, for parents to raise a child, it takes at least eight to nine years.
The most critical element is the spread of flexible work arrangements. Companies should continue their support of working parents, by adopting “reduction of working hours for childrearing” or various other working models, such as the use of staggered hours, flexible working arrangements and telecommuting systems.
Lastly, I would like to suggest establishing a “Korean-style family center.” I argue that a critical change should be made to the earlier paradigm of family policies; the basic idea is that the local community may engage itself in childcaring and help create a family-friendly community. In this communal childcare model, child-rearing parents can support and receive help from each other, indeed a new culture and model of communal childcare within the community. In addition, the community may provide high-quality childcare services, senior care services, re-employment programs, etc. It will lead to a new culture of family as well as a new business model, enhancing employment opportunities and good quality of family life, all of which will contribute to boosting the birthrate.
As a benchmark to fight the falling birthrate, now a serious challenge for Korea, and to develop our own effective policy directions, we no longer can rely on European measures. Instead, critical insight into our fertility crisis may be found in the very wisdom of Korean traditional family culture, which has been inherited from our ancestors and implemented throughout Korea’s long history. This is an insight worth serious reconsideration; building a happy family may be the shortcut path to preventing low birthrates.
Dr. Lee Myung-sun is an emeritus professor of the Department of Health Convergence at Ewha Womans University.