Lee Hae-rin is a City Desk reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues, tourism and taekwondo. She is passionate about speaking up for the rights of minorities, including women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and animals as well as discovering the latest makgeolli trend in town. Feel free to reach her at lhr@koreatimes.co.kr.
Foreign nannies policy gains momentum amid low birthrate
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By Lee Hae-rin
By Lee Hae-rin
A plan to bring foreign nannies to Korea to ease the child care burden of working parents, aiming to help solve the nation's record-low fertility rate, is gaining momentum as the president and a lawmaker continue to push for it.
Rep. Cho Jung-hun of the minor opposition party, Transition Korea, who had proposed the amendment to the Act on the Employment Improvement on Domestic Workers earlier in March, stressed, Wednesday that it would be a win-win strategy for both young Korean parents and foreign workers.
Rep. Cho Jung-hun of Transition Korea / Courtesy of Rep. Cho Jung-hun's office
“Child care service has been used only by the higher-income group (in Korea). The amendment aims to make it widely accessible with the help of foreign workers,” Cho said during a radio interview.
According to his scheme, foreigners can work in Korea as child care and domestic helpers for a maximum of five years under a direct contract with the host family and be exempted from basic labor law and minimum wage requirements.
Only Korean nationals and ethnic Koreans from China are allowed to work under such terms.
President Yoon Suk Yeol also told the Ministry of Justice during Tuesday's Cabinet meeting to examine foreign domestic worker systems currently operated in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong and review their possible introduction to Korea.
President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Seoul's Yongsan District, Tuesday. Yonhap
The exact timeline of bringing in the foreign child care workers and specifics on their working conditions are yet unknown and the government plans to collect the public's opinion before implementing the policy.
However, Cho stressed that underpaying foreign workers is not only inevitable but also reasonable because Korea's payment level is far beyond how much they expect to earn in their respective home countries.
The expected monthly salary for the service is $420 (553,000 won) in the Philippines, $400 in Indonesia, $370 in Sri Lanka and $330 in Myanmar, Cho said. The figures are less than a quarter of Korea's minimum wage ― around 2 million won ― and less than half the estimated pay of one million won that Cho proposes.
“The competition is fierce (to come work in Korea) in these countries willing to send their people,” the lawmaker said, adding that paying four to five times their desired amount is unnecessary and a further burden to young parents, given that an average monthly salary of a Korean woman in her 30s is about 2.7 million won.
His market logic-based proposal has faced criticism for failing to tackle the fundamentals of the population crisis. Many have been calling to guarantee both men and women the right to child care leave and reinforcing the public child care system while accusing the underpayment as discriminatory and the idea of foreign workers living with host families in Korea as unlikely.
In response, Cho said from his personal experience living abroad that the cultural differences between the foreign workers and Korean families can be overcome and suggested building a dormitory to provide them with accommodation and meals.