Enviable policies

A spread of satay, bak kut teh (pork rib soup) and fried oyster omelette and drinks at a hawker center in Singpaore is seen in this photo taken in December 2025. Courtesy of Kim Ji-soo

Traveling overseas is a rare opportunity these days due to affordability issues. But when bones are chilled by the cold, people jump at the smallest opportunity — and when one such opportunity arrived for me, I took it.

Ever the "one-plus-one-plus-one" traveler, this trip was a chance to reunite with friends, feast on local delicacies and find similarities between the city-state of Singapore and my life in Korea through a homestay program.

Landing in a place where the temperature was around 30 degrees Celsius awakened my near-frozen senses, and with that my first stop was East Coast Lagoon Food Village. The numerous hawker stalls featured local delicacies like bak kut teh (a pork soup similar to Korean gukbap), stingray meat, skewers of satay and fried oyster omelettes. This distinctively Singaporean quality helped bring hawker culture to greater acclaim, including designation as a UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020. Experience a few hawker centers, and you will barely notice a dent in your wallet, but definitely notice a bulge in your stomach.

Korea once had a slew of food stalls featuring dishes of hot noodles and spicy rice cakes, as well as hole-in-the wall places full of affordable Korean food with an array of side dishes known as banchan. It was full of "jeong," a feeling of warmth and attachment which in retrospect came from the labor of the owners. These restaurants have become harder and harder to find over time, now only seen in pockets of large-sized markets such as Gwangjang or Namdaemun, in Seoul at least. While you can still find Korean restaurants all over town, you should be prepared to pay a bit — or a lot, depending on where you go.

Once your eyes and mouth have been satisfied with picturesque ingredients, you are able to take in the systems of the society that produced them, albeit from a distant and limited view. One thing that stood out in Singapore was the apparent omnipresence of foreign workers, particularly as helpers and caregivers. Admittedly, this writer, in the autumn stage of life, frequently hears about and deals with family tasks to support the elderly rather than raise children. The city-state's real gross domestic product per capita was $92,932 in 2025, and it has implemented a foreign helper and caregiver system. The Korean government often alludes to this foreign worker system in Hong Kong and Singapore as it attempts to address the problems of its own aging society. Korea will become a super-aged society, where 20 percent of its population is 65 years or older, in 2026, even as its total fertility rate continues to be one of the world's lowest at 0.72 births per woman.

In an attempt to find more sources of labor to deal with these challenges, the Seoul Metropolitan Government last year adopted a pilot program to bring in qualified foreign nannies from the Philippines. A total of 100 Filipino caregivers arrived, but the program will not be renewed this year. It drew mixed reviews, particularly over the cost, but there were households who strongly advocated for the policy. In contrast to workers in Hong Kong or Singapore, caretakers shared dorms and were eventually protected by minimum wage laws that meant an hourly wage of 10,030 won (about $7) and around 2.38 million won per month for eight hours of work per day.

The gracious host who allowed me to stay at her family's home during my short visit had a caregiver for her dad, 85, and also a helper who lives in the next-door unit and cleans her father's house. I found out that the caregiver receives 1,000 Singapore dollars ($780) because of her experience working in senior homes, while helpers usually receive about 720 Singapore dollars.

It is hard to say which program is better, as the conditions are different. But as Korean households face the task of caring for elderly parents or rearing young children, there is concern over the lack of domestic alternatives. Around 80 foreign nannies are still working under the pilot program and can stay for up to 36 months under their E-9 visas. The proponents of bringing in foreign nannies and caregivers unsuccessfully floated the idea of creating different levels of mininum wage. President Lee Jae Myung's administration has said that it will review the foreign worker policy to better meet social demand. Hopefully, revisions and flexible implementation of the policy can help alleviate the pressure on the Korean public as they care for their loved ones, which is what matters in the long run.

The writer is a member of the editorial board.