Fertility Rate
The Hyundai Research Institute published a report on April 3 to suggest examples of European countries as a way of addressing the low birth rate of Korea.
In the report, the institute mentioned five solutions to the problem: flexible time systems for work-life balance, improvement of government spending to this end, increased support for various types of families, implementation of legal incentives, and the unification of support measures for marriage, pregnancy, childbirth and childrearing. The institute picked out France, Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland as the European countries that are making the most of such a policy.
The nine countries’ total fertility rate is 1.9 on average, which is much higher than that of Korea at 1.3. In addition, 42.4 percent of the employees in these countries benefit from a flexible time system, whereas the percentage is limited to 6.4 percent in Korea as of now. The ratio was as high as 55 percent in the Netherlands and Sweden each. Even Portugal, which is recording the lowest birthrate in Europe, is providing such systems for 23.1 percent of its workers.
The governments of the nine European countries are making a large investment in childrearing, too. The budget averaged 3 percent of the GDP, while the percentage was just 0.81 in Korea as of 2009.
The report also stated that the countries’ high spending on public education has to do with their high fertility rates. The public education spending-to-GDP ratio is approximately 6.8 percent in these countries, 1.8 percentage points higher than in Korea. In contrast, the ratio of private education spending to GDP was limited to 0.55 percent when Britain was excluded, 1.45 percentage points lower than that in Korea.
The European regions showed an illegitimate birth rate of 52.6 percent, too. The rate is 2.1 percent in Korea. Of the nine countries, Sweden, Britain, and France were picked out by the institute as the leading examples of birthrate management.