Flawed population policies

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced earlier this week that it has established a secretariat for population policy improvement. The secretariat consists of government officials and experts from relevant fields.

Unlike Japan, Korea does not yet have a ministry devoted to population issues. Though belated, the ministry’s establishment of the secretariat will hopefully fill the absence of a policy control tower on the looming demographic crisis.

Korea needs to take note of the progress Japan has made with its population policies. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe created a cabinet minister post to take charge of policies to boost the birthrate and support families with children. Thanks to such efforts, Japan’s birthrate rose to its highest in 21 years last year, with 1.46 children per woman.

The secretariat’s job is all the more important, considering the falling birthrate and aging population that will ultimately dent the country’s growth potential.

This week, many were shocked to learn that our birthrate is even lower than that of North Korea. In the CIA’s “World Fact Book,” South Korea ranked 220th out of 224 countries by birthrate with 1.25 child per woman, while North Korea ranked 125th with a birthrate of 1.91. Only four countries — Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Singapore — placed lower than Korea. Due to the falling birthrate, Statistics Korea projected that the nation’s population will start to decline in 2032.

Korea is aging swiftly amid no signs that the country’s birthrate will increase anytime soon. More people are putting off marriage and many young couples are giving up on having babies due to the economic burden.

The government has spent more than 80 trillion won since 2006 to boost the birthrate, but this has not encouraged women to have babies because of the harsh realities working mothers face at home and at work.

The secretariat should come up with tailor-made policies to encourage women to have babies and to support working mothers. For this, the secretariat should collect opinions from moms so that the policies will reflect their needs. This is the first step toward turning around the population descent.