Demand for Chinese Babysitters Growing
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
A growing number of parents are seeking Chinese or ethnic Korean-Chinese babysitters to help their children study Chinese.
However, parents and babysitting agencies say it is not easy to find qualified babysitters.
Following China's rapid emergence in the world economy, the demand for early learning of Chinese is growing, and residents or visiting housekeepers who can also baby-sit and teach the language are gaining in popularity, as Filipino babysitters were when early English education was booming.
Web sites of some babysitting agencies have separate sections where parents recruit Chinese or ethnic Korean-Chinese babysitters and babysitter hopefuls apply for positions. Parents suggest payment of an average 1.2 million won per month for a resident babysitting position.
``We receive two to three phone calls per week from parents who ask if they can have Chinese babysitters,'' a worker at a babysitting agency Bumo Maum said.
Some Chinese who previously taught Chinese language at private institutes, or hagwons, choose to become babysitters, as those with a high educational background can make more money than instructors, according to the institutes. It is said that such babysitters with college diplomas earn an average of 1.3 to 1.8 million won monthly.
Most parents want babysitters with high academic credentials, but not many babysitter hopefuls satisfy the criteria.
``Parents want those who have good academic careers and are legally staying in Korea. But it is difficult to find such qualified people and to verify their language ability, as we and the parents cannot tell whether the babysitter speaks standard Chinese or a dialect,'' the agency worker said.
Most Chinese or ethnic Korean-Chinese who apply for babysitting positions are middle-aged women in their 40s and 50s, and many of them were not properly educated, said a staff member of another agency Family Care.
She said the most desired babysitters are Chinese students studying here, a kind of au pair, as they can speak both Chinese and Korean and their legal status is guaranteed. ``But they can do the babysitter job as part-timers or during vacation, while parents usually want people who can stay with them for a long time,'' she said.