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The government will consider fresh incentives to families with more than two children to reverse Korea's declining birthrate after criticism that current cash rewards for a third child and help with the cost of upbringing are ineffective. No more than 10 percent of Korea's newborns are third children.
The government was out in force at a discussion chaired by Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan at the Central Government Complex on Monday to examine ways of reversing Korea's low birthrate. Besides the finance, education, agriculture and forestry, labor and health ministers, it was attended by the head of the Presidential Committee on Aging and Future Society and the Cheong Wa Dae secretary for social policy.
This is the first time so many government heavyweights have knocked their heads together to arrest Korea's rapidly declining birthrate.
In a report issued Monday, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said measures that could satisfy the aspirations of various classes and regions were needed to reverse the declining birthrate, and successful policies from abroad needed to be analyzed.
Prime Minister Lee said there were limits to what can be achieved by giving benefits to families with three children, as there were too few families that would ever see such rewards. Instead, incentives must be offered to families with two children or more. There should also be more public childcare facilities like nurseries to reduce the burden on families, he added.
The government has asked the Office for Government Policy Coordination and the Presidential Committee on Aging and the Future Society to come up this year with a comprehensive strategy to increase the birthrate. It also decided to establish nationwide joint private-public bodies at both central government and regional levels to come up with effective support systems tailored to local conditions.
A government official warned that Korea was aging too fast even compared with Japan or Western Europe. He said a response was urgently needed to the serious socioeconomic effects of an aging society, including a shrinking labor pool, rising health insurance costs, lower school populations, and reductions in military manpower.
Meanwhile, the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs predicted Monday that due to the sudden drop in the birthrate, the proportion of the elderly in Korean society would jump from 9.1 percent in 2005 to 20.8 percent in 2023.
(Kim Dong-seop, dskim@chosun.com )
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