September’s highest number of newborns in 13 years
Work-family balance, preservation of child support, etc.
Effects of government policies to respond to low birth rate
Improving awareness of marriage and childbirth among young people
To increase the birth trend
Necessity of deconcentrating the metropolitan area, etc.
Enlarge photo The number of newborns rose by the largest amount in 13 years, creating a ‘baby surprise’. Korea’s total fertility rate, which has fallen to the lowest level in the world, is certain to rebound this year.
The main reasons are that many ‘endemic babies’ have been born since last year after the demand for marriages that had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic increased rapidly in 2020-2021, and the government’s all-round response to low birth rates, such as expanding work-family balance and preserving childcare costs. This effect was achieved, and as a result, awareness of marriage and childbirth among young people improved. It is pointed out that in order to turn the rebound in birth rate into a trend upward trend in the future, additional policy efforts are needed for structural improvement, such as easing concentration in the metropolitan area and producing quality jobs.
According to the National Statistical Office on the 27th, the number of marriages in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 period fell by 10.7% and 9.8%, respectively, from the previous year, but began to rebound from last year. The number of marriages in the first quarter of last year was 53,958, a sharp increase of 18.9% from a year ago. The National Statistical Office diagnosed, “This is due to the concentration of marriages delayed due to COVID-19 from the second half of 2022 to last year.”
Couples who delayed marriage during the COVID-19 period began getting married in earnest last year, and the number of children born into these families has increased.
The government’s policy support also appears to have helped the birth rate rebound. Since last year, the government has announced various measures to preserve child support, such as parental benefit allowance. Accordingly, from January of this year, parental benefits were increased from 700,000 won per month for children over the age of 0 to 1 million won, and the first meeting voucher was also expanded to 3 million won (initially 2 million won) for second children and older.
The parental leave system has also been improved. Initially, it was a ‘3+3’ system that paid 100% of the normal wage for the first 3 months to parents caring for children within 12 months of age, but from this year, the full normal wage will be paid to parents of children within 18 months of age for the first 6 months of leave. Expanded to ‘6+6’.
Last June, measures to establish a work-family balance system were announced. Accordingly, subsidies are provided to companies when they hire replacement workers for childcare leave, and the upper limit of replacement worker subsidies was also raised from 800,000 won per month to 1.2 million won. We also created a ‘colleague work sharing support fund’ to help employees focus more on raising children by reducing working hours during the child-rearing period.
Hong Seok-cheol, former standing member of the Low Birth Rate and Aging Society Committee (professor of economics at Seoul National University), said, “Even if there was a work-family balance system, it was difficult to utilize it in the field, but there is an aspect of carefully reflecting the voices of the field through the low birth rate measures.” “As people rolled up their sleeves, the awareness of marriage and childbirth among married couples and unmarried young people improved, and this influenced the increase in birth rates and marriages,” he said. In fact, according to a survey on perceptions of marriage and children conducted by low-ranking officials in March and September of this year, the intention to marry among single men and women aged 25 to 49 increased from 61% to 65.4%. In addition, the need for children and intention to have children also improved significantly within 6 months.
Experts say that although direct support for marriage and childbirth can raise the birth rate to a certain level, it has limitations. Former Commissioner Hong said, “The reason the birth rate has been declining for nearly 10 years is not just because of a lack of child care support, but also because of a layer of social structural problems.” He added, “Young people who hesitated to get married and have children due to government policies are choosing to get married and have children. “However, it will not be possible to reverse the ‘childbirth abandonment group’ unless structural problems are resolved.”
Former Commissioner Hong went on to say, “We can lead to a trend rebound only when structural changes are made to excessive competition due to concentration in the metropolitan area, dual labor market structure, private education issues, gender conflict, and social issues.” The positive thing is that the rebound will continue for the time being. The number of marriages last September was 15,368, an increase of 18.8% (2,428) from a year ago, and the cumulative total from January to September was also 161,771, the highest since 2019.
[류영욱 기자]
