hankyoreh

Illustration by Kim Dae-jung.

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By Pak Noja (Vladimir Tikhonov), professor of Korean Studies at the University of Oslo

I recently saw that President Yoon Suk-yeol declared a state of national emergency due to the shrinking population. In doing so, he made clear his intent to put solving the plummeting birth rate at the top of his domestic agenda until the end of his term.
 
While the declaration seemed definitive, it is not the first time the government has announced that it was taking measures to fight the declining birth rate. South Korea began making such efforts in earnest in 2006, during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, with the establishment of the first “framework plan on the issue of low birth rates and an aging society.”
 
From 2006 to the early 2020s, 280 trillion won (around US$173 billion) alone has been spent in money specifically allocated for buoying the birth rate. Even with that in mind, the South Korean government has been relatively conservative in its spending.
 
While South Korea’s public spending on family benefits — including child allowances, parental leave payments, public child care support and more — accounts for only 1.37% of its gross domestic product (GDP), the average for OECD member countries is 2.12%. That being said, Korea has successfully established a welfare network for newlyweds and families with children, which provides such households with child care and housing support, thanks to efforts kickstarted under the Roh administration.
 
Despite such efforts, the birth rate — which was 1.13 when measures to alleviate the situation began to be implemented in 2006 — is predicted to fall to 0.68 in 2024. Will Yoon’s new policy help the country with the world’s lowest birth rate stop the free fall?
 
I think not. All of the policies Korea’s had until now, including Yoon’s latest, are not enough to address the heart of South Korea’s drastic birth rate problem. The fundamental root of this problem lies in a lack of certain sorts of freedom, or latitude, enjoyed by Koreans.
 
Can we still categorize reproduction as a basic human need? While Maslow’s hierarchy of needs famously specifies sex and reproduction as a basic need, this is based on societal norms from when Maslow’s paper was published in 1943. In 1943, even the most advanced countries did not have a comprehensive pension system. For most people worldwide, the only hope they had to support themselves during their old age was their children, meaning that reproduction was a key part of their retirement plan.
 
However, the situation we face in 2024 could not be more different. Even in South Korea, an industrialized country with inadequate pension systems due to its conservative approach to welfare, the notion that children should support their parents in their old age is fast becoming outdated. Naturally, reproduction is no longer the most effective retirement plan.
 
In Korea’s late capitalist society, what does reproduction signify? Reproduction has now become a form of self-actualization, which Maslow identified as one of the highest levels of need.
 
Raising a child makes a parent feel mature, fulfilled, and as though they have become a more “complete” adult. At the same time, even if children are no longer fool-proof retirement plans, they can help to stave off loneliness for a while — one of the biggest threats in late capitalist societies characterized by a state of widespread indifference to others.

This is demonstrated by how the birth rates in Scandinavian countries, where loneliness is a severe social problem, are relatively high. The birth rate in Denmark and Sweden is 1.72 and 1.67, respectively. However, no matter how important reproduction is to battle loneliness or for self-actualization, it is no longer a basic human need for people living in the modern day.
 
In this late capitalist era, reproduction is an extravagance. While it’d be nice to have kids, many simply give up on the idea because they can’t have kids for whatever reason. To indulge in such extravagance, one needs to be able to spare money, time and more.
 
Such wiggle room is exactly what South Korea, a “wealthy country,” cannot afford. While the country is well-off and wages are amongst the highest in the world, expenses for housing and private education have become excessive. Recently, the cost of living has also exorbitantly increased, which explains why South Korea’s household debt-to-GDP ratio is 100.5%, making Koreans the fourth most indebted people in the world. 
 
This is more than double the percentage observed in Eurozone countries, and much higher than that of the US, which is 73.1%. For people burdened with excruciating debt, how could planning for children be an easy decision to make?

And while Koreans enjoy less and less financial freedom, the more serious problem, and the more characteristic pitfall of Korean capitalism, is that they also have less free time to spare. The average workday for a full-time employee in Korea is 9 hours and 47 minutes, among the longest seen in advanced economies. The average Korean gets around 6 hours and 41 minutes worth of sleep each night, nearly a full hour shorter than workers in Norway. 

Such time poverty and lack of stability rob Koreans of their freedom. Just 10% and 14% of Korean workers are employed in the public sector or a major corporation, respectively. So where do the remaining 76% work? These people are clocking in at small-time or mid-sized enterprises that run the risk of going under or carrying out layoffs at any moment. 

One of the measures for combating the low birth rate that Yoon so valiantly proclaimed was to “majorly increase utilization of paternity leave” from the current 6.8% (as of 2022) to 50% by the end of his term. While the goal itself is admirable, do we really think that people working at smaller businesses that are constantly in crisis mode will request time off for parental leave when it runs the risk of making them look bad in the eyes of their boss? 

Also included in Yoon’s “declaration of demographic emergency” was a plan to increase the number of days off that fathers are granted for the birth of a child from the current 10 days to 20. But can that realistically be put into action for the non-permanently employed Koreans that make up 37% of the employed population? 

But probably the most important form of freedom necessary for reproduction is peace of mind and freedom from worry. In late capitalist societies, we don’t only pass down our genes when we reproduce, but also our general social position as well. In Korea in the 2020s, it’s no longer conceivable that greatness will come from the humblest of circumstances, and in reality, it’s become practically impossible for a child born to low-ranking white-collar parents to make it into higher-ranking professions like doctors or lawyers. Because of this, a person has to be somewhat content with their social position to make the leap to have children. But that’s easier said than done for the majority of Koreans who are caught in unstable jobs or the secondary labor market. 

In this era of hyper-individualism, having children is an extremely difficult choice and one that will totally change the trajectory of a person’s life. To make that decision, a person needs not only financial freedom, but free time, and freedom from worry through stable employment. It would take a fundamental overhaul of Korea’s model of capitalism for Koreans to afford those forms of freedom. It’s clear to see that so long as there isn’t a revolution to establish a universal welfare state and a society without precarious labor, Yoon’s plans to shore up the ultra-low birth rate will amount to nothing but overselling and underdelivering. 

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