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South Korea thinktank suggests girls start school earlier to raise birthrate

Critics label as ‘absurd’ idea from government-backed thinktank as country seeks to address population decline

A government thinktank in South Korea has sparked anger after suggesting that girls start primary school a year earlier than boys because the measure could raise the country’s low birthrate.

A report by analysts at the Korea Institute of Public Finance said creating a one-year age gap between girls and boys at school would make them more attractive to each other by the time they reached marriageable age.

The claim is based on the idea that men are naturally attracted to younger women because men mature more slowly. Those women, in theory, would prefer to marry older men.

idiomaddict ,

They better lower the retirement age for women as well, or they’re just stealing a year of women’s lives.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

The idea is to have women be less educated and married off before they’re actually adults.

itsnotits ,

They’d* better lower

idiomaddict ,

I don’t pronounce that in my dialect, so I intentionally don’t write it in informal situations. The loss of American dialects in favor of TV English is a tragedy, in my opinion, so I try to keep mine alive :)

2ugly2live ,
@2ugly2live@lemmy.world avatar

Do schools in Korea ban different grades from talking to each other? What’s stopping someone from one grade up from being with someone one grade down (or a year down if in college or something). They’re making it seem like, currently, you can only interact with people your own age?

Eheran ,

It is just much more likely that you get to know someone in your class.

BeMoreCareful ,

So the idea is that if the girls were a year younger, but in the same grade, they’d be more likely to get married? I assume not in high school. I am having trouble wrapping my mind around the concept here.

Eheran ,

Many live long connections are made in school. I assume it is perfectly correct that woman like older men and that this would work to get more of the individual kids in classes together. But would it change anything in the budget picture? How? That would mean the woman stay single after leaving school. Then that is the issue.

Argyle13 ,

Reducing the time spent at work (insane in South Korea, more than 65 hours per week in many cases) seem not a problem for them. Also doesn,t seem to be a problem the insane cost in extra curricular classes children attend to there, a country where the majority of the children have to bear mad timetables, with classes even finishing at 10PM at night. But again, women are to blame. And the solution is putting more pressure on them. Right. They are going to be very pleased with this, eager to have 6 children each and to spent a lot of his time like this. Sure.

VelvetStorm ,

They really will try anything but fixing the actual problem

EvilEyedPanda ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8fe5fd7c-dc91-4222-a683-59defc594094.jpeg

werefreeatlast ,

How about they get sent to a remote island where there’s plentiful food and fun to be had. That probably would result in babies galore. So maybe less work would do the same? 3 day work week?

CerealHunter4xcr4k ,

What a joke. If people work 69hr per week, obviously nobody will have kids lol

deegeese ,

Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

ramble81 ,

Between this and the Japanese government dating app, just how out of touch are Asian governments with what is going on? (I guess that can be said of any government). I guess I’m more curious why we’re seeing such a widening gap like this. Where is the information breakdown occurring, or is this straight up willful ignorance?

JJROKCZ ,

They simply refuse to raise wages and lower working hours because then they’d fall down the gdp chart until the potential population increase is of working age, if that even recovers the wealth, probably not

Gamers_Mate ,

"A report by analysts at the Korea Institute of Public Finance said creating a one-year age gap between girls and boys at school would make them more attractive to each other by the time they reached marriageable age.

The claim is based on the idea that men are naturally attracted to younger women because men mature more slowly. Those women, in theory, would prefer to marry older men."

What kind of Thinktank is this? Instead of coming to the obvious conclusion that stuff is to expensive and trying to make it less expensive they turn it into a sexist theory that connects girls going to school earlier to higher birth rate.

JJROKCZ ,

A think tank that is paid to find a result that doesn’t hurt the bottom line of the people paying for it. The real solution is boost pay and lower working hours but the corps won’t allow that as it may make them less money

SteefLem ,
@SteefLem@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe they should check why they dont want kids anymore and fix that. But than they would have to change things for the better for the young ppl and not burn them out, so probably not gonna happen soon.

user224 ,
@user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

The trend has been blamed on the high cost of raising and educating children, and the lack of affordable housing

SteefLem ,
@SteefLem@lemmy.world avatar

Well then they should fix that. But that would hurt the profits

WhatAmLemmy ,

Anything to maintain the insatiable status quo of increased growth, consumption, and profitability while stretching all expenses as thin as possible.

There’s very little meat in these gym mats

ChicoSuave ,

No, the system that maintains these unsustainable standards isn’t the problem. It’s the people who don’t fit into the mold. We need to change people to preserve the system!

Stovetop ,

This is funny to me.

Oh, it costs too much to educate kids? Just put them in schools at a younger age, rip off that bandaid sooner.

No, let’s not talk about the wound that bandaid is covering up in the first place, that’s completely unrelated.

over_clox ,

“This summer, 100 Filipino domestic helpers and childminders will arrive in South Korea as part of a pilot programme designed to ease the pressure on working women who fear they will have to leave their jobs if they have children.”

TL;DR - It’s cheaper to pay Filipinos to raise children than it is to pay actual biological mothers.

cmeio ,

Maybe also fathers. Would help also if it not falls always back on the women to take care of the kids. There are 2 parents that could shoulder that

over_clox ,

I just quoted the article yo, but you do make a valid point.

NOT_RICK ,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, if those women would prefer to keep working with more child raising support I think that’s a great option along with some sort of benefit system for those that do want to stay at home to raise kids. I’d imagine the latter isn’t on the table though

over_clox ,

Raising children is work. So it’s okay to pay Filipinos to raise children, but not pay the parents to raise their own children?

They’re outsourcing parenting to foreigners, ain’t that just cute? Anything to save money huh? 🤔

NOT_RICK ,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

I’m saying giving parents a choice between the two would probably be best.

over_clox ,

It’s no different than if I were to hire a foreigner to babysit rather than hire a local citizen because it’s cheaper…

chonglibloodsport ,

They’re paying the Filipino care workers about $710/month. Paying a professional Korean working parent to stay home from her job to care for her own kids would cost a lot more than that, both in terms of the money spent and the cost to the employer to train and hire a temporary replacement.

over_clox ,

Um, thanks for the numbers and comparison I guess, basically backing up my comment. Do they not have professional daycare facilities that employ Korean citizens?

Or are they just too cheap to pay their own citizens? Because basically every time a country outsources work of any form to foreigners, it’s always to save $$$…

Have an upvote, you’ve highlighted my basic point. 👍

chonglibloodsport ,

I’m sure if they could pay Koreans to do the work they would. The issue is that they’re too expensive. Korea has a highly educated population with extremely fierce competition to get into the best universities (the infamous CSAT) and the best jobs after graduation. Koreans who do not make it tend to move overseas where their education gives them an advantage over other immigrants for college and job spots. This process leaves very few available workers for many different low-skilled jobs (not just child care).

over_clox ,

So, in one comment, you refer to professional child care, and in your next comment, you refer to child care as a low-skill job?

Can you make up your mind?

Like I said, it’s not about the people, it’s about the money. Always has been, and always will be.

chonglibloodsport ,

We need to make a distinction between child care and early childhood education (ECE). Korea does have ECE programs at their universities and so presumably there are spaces available at ECE programs. However these are expensive because they’re staffed by highly educated professionals, so only well-off parents can afford them.

This is of course true in any country with a highly educated populace. The issue has been called “cost disease.” When you have a highly efficient, highly productive economy, you end up having to pay less productive workers more. For example, compare a typical office worker with a hairdresser. An office worker today is far more productive than they would’ve been a hundred years ago. On the other hand, the hairdresser today is exactly as productive as they were a hundred years ago.

Hairdressing productivity has not increased at all whereas office work has. So if you want hairdressers to still exist you need to pay them a lot more than you would have a hundred years ago (commensurate with the increase in productivity of office workers), otherwise the hairdresser might as well get an office job!

You can see this story repeating itself throughout both Korean and Western economies (and anywhere else where productivity has increased dramatically). And in all of these countries you can see a lot of reliance on foreign workers to fill in these sorts of low skill jobs (such as basic childcare).

The other aspect of professional child care facilities that I see no one talking about is real estate. These facilities need a ton of space in some really expensive areas to handle a relatively small number of children. Paying for an in-home childcare worker can be a lot cheaper than a professional facility for the simple reason that you don’t have to pay for the overhead of the facility’s rent and maintenance costs.

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A government thinktank in South Korea has sparked anger after suggesting that girls start primary school a year earlier than boys because the measure could raise the country’s low birthrate.

Shin Gyeong-a, a sociology professor at Hallym University, told the Korea JoongAng Daily newspaper: “That such a report, without any screening, was published in a democratic country – by a state-run research institute that will evaluate measures to address low birthrates in the future, no less – is ridiculous.”

Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the main opposition party, described the report’s recommendations as “absurd”, adding: “We need to take fundamental and macro-level measures [against the low birthrate].”

The proposal was “worse than telling them not to have kids”, another wrote, while others complained that taxpayers’ money had been used to fund the report.

Last month, the Seoul metropolitan government said it would offer up to 1m won (£775) to couples who have sterilisation procedures reversed.

This summer, 100 Filipino domestic helpers and childminders will arrive in South Korea as part of a pilot programme designed to ease the pressure on working women who fear they will have to leave their jobs if they have children.

The original article contains 565 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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