Booyoung Group, a South Korean firm based in Seoul, is ready to pay a bonus of 100 million Korean won ($75,000) to its employees each time they have a baby. The company took this decision to help fix the country’s abysmally low birth rate, reports said. The latest scheme will benefit both men and women, a spokesperson of the construction firm told CNN.
South Korea has the world's lowest fertility rate. It continued its dramatic decline in 2023, as most women are concerned about their careers and the financial cost of raising children and have decided not to have babies at all or delay childbirth.
As per the data shared by Statistics Korea on Wednesday (February 28), the average number of expected babies for a woman in South Korea during her reproductive life fell to 0.72 in 2023, compared with 0.78 in 2022. According to reports, the fertility rate in the country is expected to drop further to 0.65 in 2025.
South Korea's demographic crisis has emerged as a major threat to economic growth and the social welfare system, with the country's population of 51 million expected to be cut in half by the end of the century.
However, South Korea is not the only country dealing with a low fertility rate across the globe. There are several governments and companies around the world that have announced various initiatives to encourage people to have more babies.
A few days ago, preliminary government data showed that the number of babies born in Japan fell for the eighth consecutive year to a record low in 2023. In 2023, the number of births fell by 5.1% from a year earlier to 758,631. On the other hand, the number of marriages declined by 5.9% to 489,281.
Last year, it was reported that the Japanese government is planning to make handouts totalling $660 for pregnant women a permanent fixture in FY 2025. As per the plan, $660 will be handed out to all pregnant women in Japan when they will report their pregnancy to the local municipality office.
Itochu Corp, one of Japan's leading trading houses, last year took a stand against the country's falling birth rate trend by successfully implementing measures to support work-life balance and encourage its employees to have more babies. The company had banned office work after 8 pm.
Besides South Korea and Japan, the fertility rate in China — earlier the world's most populated country before being taken over by India — has also dropped to a record low of 1.09 in 2022, official data showed in August last year.
Trip.com, one of the world’s largest online travel agencies, had last year stated that its workers in China, who have been a part of the company for at least three years, will be getting a 10,000 yuan ($1,376) annual bonus for each new-born child every year starting from baby's first birthday till they reach the age of five.
For this initiative, the company introduced childcare subsidies worth 1 billion yuan ($138 million) to encourage the 32,000 employees to have more children.
