President Chairs Low Birthrate Committee Meeting After 7 Years
Emphasizes Bold Measures and Focused Fiscal Investment
Even If Low Birthrate Issue Not Resolved,
Children Must Grow Up Bright and Healthy
For Effectiveness of Birth, Childcare, and Care Leave Systems,
Both Government and Private Sector Must Participate
Selects 4 Core Strategies and 5 Key Areas
Presidential Office Calls Existing Policies "Department Store Style,"
Encourages Effective Use by Policy Consumers
President Yoon Suk-yeol emphasized on the 28th at the 1st Low Fertility and Aging Society Committee meeting, "The state must take clear responsibility and guarantee that the joy of having and raising children and the goal of self-realization can be simultaneously fulfilled, and under this goal, bold measures must be prepared and necessary finances concentrated." It is the first time in seven years that the president has directly chaired a low fertility committee meeting. The Presidential Office and the Low Fertility Committee plan to restructure the more than 200 low fertility measures that had been prepared in a department store-like manner based on scientific evidence.
In his opening remarks at the Low Fertility Committee meeting held at the Blue House State Guest House that afternoon, President Yoon stated, "The most important thing is that the state must be able to give the people the belief and trust that it will firmly take responsibility for our children."
He urged that, first of all, the state must provide trust that it will take responsibility for children and also establish a foundation for children to grow up healthily. Regarding this, President Yoon stressed, "Frankly speaking, even if the low fertility problem is not solved, I believe it is the state's fundamental duty to ensure that children born on this land grow up bright and healthy."
He also emphasized the need to identify the causes of failure in the previous administration's birth policies and to implement policies that help revive the birth rate. President Yoon pointed out, "Over the past 15 years, an astronomical budget of 280 trillion won was invested in comprehensive plans, but last year's total fertility rate recorded a historic low of 0.78. We must coldly reevaluate low fertility policies based on scientific evidence and properly identify the reasons for failure."
He added, "The low fertility issue is intricately intertwined with social issues such as welfare, education, jobs, housing, taxation, and cultural factors including women's economic activities. Along with government support, cultural and value factors must also be considered. Therefore, it is a problem that requires diverse approaches from various angles."
He also urged that existing childbirth and childcare systems be checked to ensure they are properly applied in the field and their effectiveness enhanced, while private sector participation for overall social and cultural change should be pursued simultaneously.
President Yoon mentioned, "Many labor vulnerable groups such as small and medium-sized enterprises and non-regular workers find it difficult to properly use even the childbirth, childcare, care, and leave guaranteed by law." He added, "It is difficult to solve the low fertility problem with policies alone when a culture conducive to childbirth and childcare has not been established."
The intention is to provide seamless support for having and raising children, including the establishment of care and education, flexible work and parental leave, housing stability, alleviation of childcare cost burdens, and expanded support for infertile couples.
He continued, "While reviewing current systems to enhance effectiveness, private sector participation for cultural change throughout society must also be pursued simultaneously. It seems we need to shift more toward the culture of our past villages or communities."
He particularly stated, "The low fertility problem cannot be solved by short-term or one-time measures. We must continuously communicate with the field through detailed public opinion surveys and Focus Group Interviews (FGI), and hold regular Low Fertility and Aging Society Committee meetings to create systems and policies that the public can feel through close cooperation between the ruling party and government."
At the meeting, after watching a video featuring the voices of policy demanders such as 'working moms' and the committee's operational direction, Vice Chairman Kim Young-mi reported on the "Yoon Suk-yeol Government's Low Fertility and Aging Society Tasks and Policy Directions." According to the Presidential Office, the four core strategies of the Yoon Suk-yeol government are ▲ selection and concentration ▲ elimination of blind spots and gaps ▲ structural reform and awareness enhancement ▲ strengthening the policy implementation foundation.
Accordingly, the government has set five core areas and major tasks: ▲ dense and high-quality care and education ▲ time with children for working parents ▲ family-friendly housing services ▲ reduction of childcare cost burdens ▲ healthy children, happy parents, and plans to continue discussing related detailed measures.
Specifically, these include expanding child care services and hourly care, implementing integrated childcare and expanding Neulbom Schools nationwide, promoting the enactment of the Child Basic Act, creating practical conditions for the use of work-childcare support systems, and improving the working environment during childcare for direct parental care.
Also included are expanding housing supply and financial support for newlyweds, expanding customized housing supply considering household size, providing parental allowances, improving the amount and criteria for Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments, preparing family-friendly tax law amendments, prenatal health management, expanding infertility support, and zero out-of-pocket hospitalization costs for children under two years old.
An Sang-hoon, Senior Secretary for Social Affairs at the Presidential Office, explained at a briefing held at the Yongsan Presidential Office after the Low Fertility Committee meeting, "Experts in this field commonly recognize that the low fertility problem is complexly intertwined with socio-cultural factors and cannot be solved by fragmented policies alone. We plan to thoroughly evaluate the more than 200 department store-like policies based on scientific evidence and select those that are effective to reduce and restructure the overall number of policies."
Regarding the effective application of current systems such as childbirth and childcare leave mentioned by President Yoon, he emphasized, "Considering the differences between large and small businesses, we will carefully ensure that these are effectively utilized in all sectors. Preparations for related supplementary measures are underway."
In response to a reporter's question pointing out that unlike the policies under discussion in the People Power Party, such as military service exemption for three or more children and differentiated inheritance tax deductions based on the number of children, no radical support measures were included in this meeting, a senior official from the Presidential Office said, "According to experts' research, the low fertility problem is almost a cultural change spanning a generation. Looking at Western societies, after the start of low fertility, it took more than a generation to bottom out and recover to a certain level." He added, "It is established that the problem cannot be solved in a short time by any drastic measures or fragmented combinations of individual policies."
He continued, "Nevertheless, the government is steadily taking care of what parents and children who are raising children right now need from the welfare and education perspective. The approach is to select and concentrate on highly effective measures and expand those scientifically proven to be effective."
Regarding policy restructuring, he said, "For consumers to effectively use policies, visibility must be high, but with hundreds of fragmented policies, it is difficult to know and use them properly. This is the most basic remedy to solve the information asymmetry problem, and the plan is to narrow down the department store-like policies into several packages focusing on those with outstanding effectiveness."
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