I have just learned something new about Korea. The reasons behind it are still unclear to me, as are the logistics, but nonetheless, this is common practice here.
I'm talking about parents getting money for their children.
My coteacher, one of the sweetest people I have ever met (side note), is pregnant with her second child. We were talking about credit cards a few weeks ago, and she was showing me how many she has. When she got to a particular card, she said that was the government money for her daughter. Confused, I asked her to explain, and this is what she told me:
In Suseong gu, a 'county' of Daegu, she receives 500,000 won (~500$) from the government after her first trimester (her doctor fills out a form and submits it, then a prepaid card is sent to her home). Once the child is born, she will receive 50,000 won every month until the child is 2 years old.
But wait, there's more.
If she has a third child, she receives 500,000 won during pregnancy (again), but this time, after birth it's 200,000 won/month for 18 months.
The 500,000 won during pregnancy is a federal regulation, so that amount is the same anywhere in Korea. What changes is the post-birth payments. Every county of every city is different; some are more, some are less. In Seoul, they payments are much higher due to a higher cost of living, and I can only imagine that the reverse is true in rural farming towns.
I have no verified answers as to why this happens, but I can speculate to my heart's content (yay internet!). I've come up with two theories:
1) This is the Korean government's way of encouraging population growth (hypothetical specific reasons stretch from national pride to diabolical world takeover. I'm leaning towards the former). If financial reasons are a major factor in a choice not to have more than one child, perhaps parents will see this as a means to compensate.
2) The government simply wants to ensure that all Korean children receive a good upbringing. Malnutrition and lack of adequate housing are characteristic of underdeveloped countries, and maybe Korea wants to eliminate any chance of the same happening to their children. After all, future leaders and scientists and teachers are born every day. It's in their best interest to protect those minds and foster them in a stable environment.
Keeping in mind that I have no idea of the full impact of this process on the Korean economy, on a small scale it seems like a great idea. The fundamental fact is this: parents are better able to care for their children. The amount isn't so great that you'd have a kid just to take advantage of a paycheck, as I fear would happen in many other countries (cough *America* cough).
Anyway, I'm interested to know what you think! Post a comment with your theory behind this practice, or whether or not it should be adopted elsewhere.
안녕!
Bye!
This is the first I hear of it... Obviously this is Korea and Korea should do what it thinks is best for Korea. A negative population growth does tend to be bad for the economy, I know, because as the older, non-working population increases and as such leads to an increase in costs for the government to take care of them. That means tax money - of which there is now less because the working population is now smaller.
ReplyDeleteI know that this issue is starting to become quite prevalent in Japan.
However, in my personal opinion I disagree with trying to increase population growth. Most of the global problems can be traced back to that there are, you know, TOO MANY PEOPLE, and as such I think getting back down to size might be a good thing.
I definitely agree with your personal opinion. The population density is already off the charts here, and this seems to be counterproductive. But at the same time, like you mentioned, younger people paying for older people seems to be the way economies run everywhere.
DeleteNot sure what the actual reasoning is behind this, but I thought it was intriguing enough to share.