"Go All Out to Help" Gyeongbuk Province to Expand Childcare Support for 'Young Single Parents' Nationwide for the First Time

Payments Extended to Single Young Parents Aged 35-39 Starting August

Gyeongbuk Provincial Government Office. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] In Gyeongbuk, support for child-rearing expenses for ‘young single parents’ will be expanded for the first time nationwide.

Gyeongsangbuk-do announced on the 18th that starting in August, it will expand and support child-rearing expenses for low-income ‘young single parents’ aged 35 to 39, in addition to the existing support for ‘young single parents’ aged 34 and under, making it the first local government in the country to do so.

Based on the ‘Gyeongsangbuk-do Youth Basic Ordinance,’ Gyeongbuk Province plans to expand the eligibility to those aged up to 39 to alleviate the livelihood and child-rearing burdens of economically vulnerable young single parents.

Following the revision of the ‘Single-Parent Family Support Act,’ since May of this year, Gyeongbuk has been providing additional child-rearing expenses of 50,000 to 100,000 KRW per child per month to young single parents aged 25 to 34.

Child-rearing expenses are paid to young single parents at 100,000 KRW per month per child under the age of 5, and 50,000 KRW per month per child aged 6 to 18.

To implement this new project, consultations regarding the appropriateness of benefit levels were completed with the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Social Security Committee.

Additionally, a function was added to the Social Security Information System (Happy e-um) to organize the list of benefit recipients, and payments are scheduled to begin on the 20th of this month. Existing single-parent family benefit recipients will receive payments without a separate application process.

In Gyeongbuk Province, besides nationally funded projects, various initiatives are being promoted through independent projects such as university entrance fees for children, winter fuel costs, and self-reliance settlement funds to support the livelihood stability and healthy child-rearing of single-parent families.

This year, with a budget of 500 million KRW, a new facility for unmarried mother-child families (basic living support type) will be established to provide a variety of welfare services, including medical support for childbirth for divorced, bereaved, or unmarried pregnant women, free lodging and meals, child-rearing coaching, and vocational training for self-reliance support. The facility is scheduled to open in October.

Governor Lee Cheol-woo said, “Single-parent families bear the burden of raising children, livelihood, and household chores alone and have faced unprecedented difficulties due to COVID-19,” adding, “We will steadily expand family welfare services to resolve welfare blind spots by stabilizing the lives and establishing a foundation for self-reliance of economically vulnerable young single parents.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.