South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said this Wednesday (19) that the country is in a situation of “national demographic emergency” and promised to activate a comprehensive plan to promote birth rates, currently the highest. lows in the developed world.
“Today I officially declare a national demographic emergency. We will activate a comprehensive government response system until we resolve the challenge of low birth rates,” Yoon said during a meeting with a presidential committee held in Seongnam, south of Seoul.
The president outlined three main areas for the plan: work-life balance, improvements to child care services and improved access to housing for families.
Following the heavy defeat suffered by Yoon’s conservative People’s Power Party in April’s legislative elections, the president, who was greatly weakened in Parliament for the remaining three years of his term, announced the creation of a new ministry to tackle the problem. of low birth rates.
The minister of this portfolio, initially called the Ministry of Strategic Population Planning, will also act as deputy prime minister for social affairs.
This ministry will be responsible for developing strategies related to South Korean population problems, including low birth rates, the aging population and immigration policies.
The measures outlined by Yoon include increasing subsidies for maternity leave, extending it to ensure that 50% of South Korean fathers make use of this benefit (currently only 6.8%).
In addition, the South Korean president spoke about making work more flexible, increasing extracurricular programs in primary schools, giving priority to families with newborns in access to housing and low-interest mortgage credit and granting more tax exemptions to families with minors.
The fertility rate (the average number of children a woman brings into the world during her lifetime) in South Korea fell to 0.72 in 2023, the lowest figure in the entire Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) . (With EFE Agency)
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