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| Children go to a spring picnic the day before Children's Day at Seoul Children's Grand Park, May 4. Korea Times photo by Wang Tae-seog |
By Lee Hae-rin
The Seoul Metropolitan Government held a debate with policy experts, Wednesday, to discuss the possible introduction of foreign nannies at sub-minimum wage pay rates to tackle the city's record-low birth rate and examine overseas cases to map out localization of the policy.
Bringing foreign nannies to the capital is one of Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon's main policy plans, which could come into effect at a trial level as early as later this year. The capital marked the lowest fertility rate among all cities at 0.59 children per woman last year.
Professor Kim Hyun-cheol of the Economics Department and Division of Public Policy at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology shared the situation and research from Hong Kong.
Kim cited Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department saying since the policy was introduced there in 1990, the number of foreign nannies jumped by 4.6 times from 1990s 70,335 to 338,189 last year. Their top nationalities are the Philippines (56.2 percent) and Indonesia (41.4 percent).
Between 1978 and 2006, Hong Kong saw a 10- to 14-percent increase in labor participation rate among women with children aged under five.
However, the cause-and-effect relationship between the policy and bringing up the low birthrate has yet to be proven and the monthly salary of foreign nannies should range around one million won ($790) for young Korean middle-class parents to benefit from the policy, the professor explained.
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| Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, center, poses with lawmakers and policy experts during the city government's debate session on introducing foreign nannies at the City Hall, Wednesday. Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government |
Experts agreed upon the need to find alternative solutions to Korea's aging child care workforce but underscored that the debate should focus more than bringing cheap labor.
According to Statistics Korea, the country's childcare workers shrank from 2016's 186,000 to 114,000 last year.
Kim highlighted that the city should enforce a labor management system considering the possibility of foreign workers leaving their jobs after coming to Korea due to lower-than-standard pay levels.
Kim Ah-reum, a researcher at the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education agreed with Professor Kim, explaining that the domestic childcare market is growing to prioritize workers' expertise with the development of private companies and housekeeper recruitment platforms.
Seoul Institute's researcher Ahn Hyun-chan, who presented a comparative study of the policy implementation in Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Germany and Japan marked that these countries obligate employers to provide foreign housekeepers with housing in or outside their residence and questioned how that could be possible in Seoul, where the housing prices are high.
"(These overseas cases show that) Housekeeping, whose contract relation, nature and place of duty is in a private domain, has been criticized for human rights infringement," Ahn said, urging for protection measures for foreign workers.
Experts pointed out that the government should take comprehensive measures in tackling the plummeting birth rate by not only bringing foreign nannies but also guaranteeing working parents more time to raise children.
Professor Kim marked that Korea ranks fourth among the OECD nations in longest working hours and said, "Bringing foreign housekeepers can't be an ultimate solution (to fighting low fertility rate) and it should come to effect with reducing working hours."
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