Tackling world's lowest birthrate

Рет қаралды 3,209

Күн бұрын

한국 출산율 사상 처음 0.6명대 진입, 해법은?
Hello and welcome to Within the Frame, I’m your new host, in Seoul.
South Korea’s birthrate, the lowest in the world, continues its downward spiral, shattering its own records.
The rates are so low that it’s sparking stark warnings from academia and institutions across the globe, with major foreign news outlets dissecting reasons why Korean women aren’t having babies.
Korea is on track for serious economic consequences if the low rates are left unresolved. What’s continuing to drive down the numbers and what more should be done to reverse the decline?
For some clues, we’ve invited two special guests today. HWANG Myung-Jin, Professor of Public Administration at Korea University now joins us via zoom. Also joining us tonight from Milan is Francesco BILLARI, Professor of Demography and Rector of the Bocconi University.
(HWANG) Q1. South Korea’s total fertility rate, the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, plunged to 0.65 in the fourth quarter of last year.
Statistics Korea projects the annual fertility rate to drop further to 0.6 this year.
What does the figure 0.6 entail?
(BILLARI) Q2. Korea saw an increase in the number of marriages after the Covid-19 pandemic technically shifted to an endemic, and the Korean government is pinning hopes that the rise could help improve the country’s bleak birthrate figures.
Then could the rapid plunge in total fertility rate to the 0.6 range be a temporary phenomenon?
(BILLARI) Q3. Italy also faces a long-standing demographic crisis, with the number of births continuing to head for a new record low.
According to Italy’s national statistics bureau ISTAT, births fell 1.7% to 393-thousand in 2022, hitting the lowest since the country's unification in 1861.
What are the main causes driving the numbers down in Italy?
(HWANG) Q4. We’ve been discussing the reasons behind Korea's crawling birthrate a lot, analyzing from diverse angles.
And some of the main culprits for the drastic drop in figures include, heavy workload and long working hours, soaring education expenses and gender inequality imposing much heavier burden on women in and outside of their homes.
Let’s talk more about this, and what calls for the most urgent attention?
(HWANG) Q5. Let’s talk a little bit about countermeasures. The Korean government has injected a staggering 380 trillion won, or roughly 284 billion dollars over the past 17 years, but it did little to lift the crawling figures.
And what’s quite odd is that the budgetary support for areas directly linked to birth and childcare rather decreased, according to the National Assembly’s budget committee.
What’s happening? We wanna get your thoughts on this.
(BILLARI) Q6. One of the Korean government’s countermeasures to tackle the country’s plunging birthrate is boosting after school care programs to alleviate the burden on working parents.
The programs were available in the past, but they’ll be further be extended and diversified to cater to working parents’ specific needs.
In your point of view, how effective would this be?
What can we learn from other advanced nations in Europe that took a similar path to tackle the issue?
(HWANG) Q7. The government is also showering parents with cash, hoping it would have an immediate effect in encouraging more households to have kids.
But many remain skeptical that money alone will not fix the country’s fertility woes.
Tell us more about these cash payouts, and your thoughts on their effects.
(BILLARI) Q8. Italy plans to spend over one billion euros on new initiatives to encourage Italian women to have more babies.
The package includes various tax incentives, exemption from social security contributions and more support for nurseries all of this for women that have two children or more.
How is this plan coming along, and would it be effective in reversing Italy’s low figures?
(HWANG) Q9. Childcare leave is another important dimension for working parents, but Korea largely remains conservative about it.
Fresh efforts are being made, but according to Statistics Korea, only about 30% of working parents actually took childcare leave in 2022.
And the figure dips much lower, when it comes to paternity leave.
What more needs to be done to make full use of the leave system...
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2024-03-05, 18:30 (KST)

Пікірлер: 31

@edbrewington3 2 ай бұрын

It's too expensive to have a child in S Korea. I'm a foreigner and my wife is Korean. We have two boys. The costs of their hagwons are out of control. We actually have good careers and are financially stable, but the costs just keep on increasing even for us. The govt should support the public schools to challenge these hagwons so the public has more choices instead of getting into an arms race to pay higher prices for private education. If these academies are so effective, then why are more students having more success? It's a problem, and most parents don't have any options because both parents have to work, which means they don't have time to spend with their children. It's a vicious cycle, and I don't blame young people for thinking it's not worth it. Hagwons are like private healthcare in the US. Good for profits, but not the public and its well-being. On top of that, the cost of living is increasing while wages do not keep up for the vast majority of the public.

@carkawalakhatulistiwa 8 күн бұрын

Prohibit private tutoring

@edbrewington3 7 күн бұрын

@@carkawalakhatulistiwa Private tutoring? or Private academies....you mean?

@Martinmr07 2 ай бұрын

If our government does not know why people are not having kids then that is a serious problem… of course there are other reasons why people are not having kids but a mayor concern is financial stability and a safe environment.

@edilee5909 2 ай бұрын

Exactly. I don't want kids before I can guarantee a roof over my head, so probably at 50 years old

@wamnicho 2 ай бұрын

@@edilee5909 if you’re female, you won’t be able to reproduce at 50

@beetafly2 2 ай бұрын

"Most irreversible decision in our life"........ 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

@curiousinkorea91 2 ай бұрын

The Italian guest is on point about the extended childcare services vs. giving parents a chance to spend more time with their kids. Sure parents would appreciate that but there’s more to being a parent than providing the finances. 😢

@kiwilove2163 2 ай бұрын

Yea that was spot on.

@Caligirl1977 2 ай бұрын

In the US, this whole push for return to office is putting many working parents back in the hardship of paying for expensive childcare and the higher cost of living combined with expensive childcare is making the idea of having kids much less attractive than before. Companies may think they are going to mitigate the financial impact of less people in the population on their bottom line by using AI to automate people out of their jobs but what companies don’t seem to realize is they still need humans to buy their goods and services. Robots are not the ones who will buy food, cars and homes, people will. And if no one is working due to AI taking over and no one is having kids anymore then what will happen?

@_aiborie 2 ай бұрын

Some of the resounding solutions mentioned, gender pay equality so that mothers will be able to spend more on their children, husbands will also benefit since they won't be incentivized to seek additional work. Both parents then will have more time and resources for their children.

@jhasjhis9 2 ай бұрын

Korean culture is not compatible with children. With inflation, the growing cost of going to elite schools(only), ultra competition, expectations of being a mother or father, pressure and stress of society. Why would anyone have kids if it doesn’t serve them anything other than more financial stress? Society places so much emphasis on money making, external appearances, judgement from others. It’s not conductive to having kids which requires a lot of collective support from family friends and the government. Just look at the entertainment industry in Korea to understand how many people are not getting married in order to just make a buck. Not to mention the unrealistic standards people have towards their future spouses/in-laws, people aren’t even getting married.

@ExxtraSpicyBoi 2 ай бұрын

Korea doesn't have 10-20years with a .6 birth rate

@SonOfMorning 2 ай бұрын

It will be 0 in 10-20 years.

@remuscalpe2885 Ай бұрын

god 0 birthrate in the next 10yrs????@@SonOfMorning

@TuyenHuynh-cl7ec 2 ай бұрын

All of these mess up experts need to stop playing politics about it. It's a simple none complex issue with simple solution. MONEY! Is the problem and solution. The current money solution is puny. Figure out the money.