[Inside Chodong] Parental Allowance Alone Is Not Enough to Solve Low Birth Rate

Starting from the new year, parents raising infants and toddlers will receive a 'parental allowance' regardless of income or assets. The government plans to begin providing 700,000 KRW per month for children aged 0 and 350,000 KRW for children aged 1, and from 2024, these amounts will be increased to 1,000,000 KRW and 500,000 KRW respectively.

Workers who hesitated to take parental leave due to concerns about reduced income can ease their financial burden thanks to the parental allowance. Currently, parental leave pay guarantees about 80% of the average wage but has a maximum cap of 1,500,000 KRW per month, so anything above that is not paid. For example, if a worker earning 3,000,000 KRW per month takes parental leave, their income is halved, but with the addition of the parental allowance, they could receive a total of 2,500,000 KRW monthly, raising the income replacement rate to 83.3%. The government expects this to reduce reluctance to use parental leave due to financial reasons and increase the rate of paternal parental leave usage.

However, in the field, there is considerable skepticism about whether this system, which supports up to 12 million KRW annually per newborn, can actually raise South Korea's birth rate, which is considered the worst in the world. The parental allowance applies only until the child turns 2 years old. After that, there are supports such as daycare fees, kindergarten tuition, childcare allowances (100,000 KRW per month), and child benefits (100,000 KRW per month), but the increasing costs of raising and educating children as they grow remain a direct burden on parents. Because of this, while the parental allowance may be welcomed by parents who have already had children, there are opinions that families who have postponed or given up on childbirth are unlikely to decide to have children because of the parental allowance.

Moreover, considering high housing prices, long working hours, and a competitive education environment, the reality is that many feel unable to raise children. Since there are no plans to have children, even marriage rates are declining. Unlike the older generation who cry out that the country is doomed due to the extremely low birth rate, younger generations argue that "in a world where it is hard enough to take care of oneself, having and raising children without economic preparation is irresponsible."

For several years, TV programs showing celebrities raising children have been very popular, and some continue to air with similar concepts. While these programs showed that even famous celebrities are clumsy and exhausted as parents, gaining empathy and comfort from viewers, the sight of celebrity families raising children in spacious homes filled with expensive toys and childcare products evoked not just envy but also fear of parenting among ordinary people. Above all, ordinary office workers lamented that it is a 'practically impossible fantasy' for fathers to spend a lot of time participating in childcare while maintaining their livelihood. Everyone has come to realize that raising children requires as much time and leisure as money.

To increase the birth rate, economic support alone is insufficient. A social atmosphere that eliminates worries about parental leave or career breaks, enables work-family balance, empathizes with how precious it is to have and raise children, and a social system that makes this possible must be established. At the government level, rather than focusing solely on increasing the absolute population, the emphasis should be on improving the quality of life for families raising young children and creating a positive parenting environment.

The parental allowance is one of the 110 national policy tasks of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration. Although previous governments also implemented various birth policies with tens of trillions of won in fiscal investment, South Korea's total fertility rate hit a historic low of 0.81 last year, and it is predicted to fall further to the 0.7 range by the end of this year. While government financial support will help to some extent, unless social awareness and the environment improve first, solving the low birth rate problem remains a distant goal.

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