Nation should avoid reverse discrimination
All multicultural children will be able to receive free daycare services from next year. This is a welcome proactive move by the nation toward embracing multi-ethnicity. Yet, the program may trigger a dispute over reverse discrimination against Korean kids.
The government announced Thursday that a total of 28,000 multicultural children will be the beneficiary of free daycare services from their birth until they reach five. Regardless of income level, their parents can receive a state subsidy to enroll their kids in daycare centers. This is a major departure from the current policy. As of now, only multicultural parents whose monthly income is below 2.58 million are eligible to benefit from the welfare program.
This is a desirable step to inject vitality into the nation through a proactive immigration policy. The multicultural families enjoy a right not granted to Korean families with children of the same-age. Korean parents are eligible for the program only when a family of four has a monthly income of less than 4.5 million won. The threshold rises to six million won for a double-income family. About 70 percent of Korean families with children have access to the program. All multicultural families will be beneficiaries. Although there are rich multicultural families here that will benefit as well.
In its immigration policy, Seoul should not discriminate foreigners who naturalized themselves to become Koreans vis-a-vis locals in state welfare programs. It is also equally important for the government not to give them privileges, a potential source of future social conflict over reverse discrimination.
It is also important for the government to provide welfare services only to those registered immigrants who have a tax record. Those with no tax records should be excluded.
From next year, the government will hire 100 instructors to help immigrants learn the Korean language. President Lee Myung-bak said that the government should take care of multicultural kids in providing daycare services and language training. He said the programs are necessary as their foreign mothers are not fluent in Korean.
The multicultural children born between a Korean and a foreigner are clearly Koreans. The government support should not be limited only to free daycare services. They should not face difficulty in getting a good education. There are occasional reports that they are ill-treated as black sheep at schools. Beyond state subsidies, Korean children should receive orientation not to alienate their multicultural peers in class. If they prematurely drop out of school, they will become a liability to the society.
Korea will have no choice but to adopt a proactive immigration policy as the birth rate is one of the lowest in the world. Without input from immigrants, Korea will have difficulty in maintaining vitality in society and contributing to the economy.
Some even propose that the government accept 2 million immigrants, 4 percent of the population, to offset the falling birth rate. This is in sharp contrast with many Western countries where immigrants have become a burden for the citizens suffering from the global economic downturn.
