amidst seriously decreasing population in Korea
A leading Korean construction business group, Booyoung, declared on February 5 that it will provide employees with 100 million won (US$75,000) per birth to help boost the country's record-low birth rate.
Booyoung has delivered a combined 7 billion won to 70 employees, either man or woman, who had one child or more since January 2021, Booyoung said in a statement.
The company will stick to the incentive program, while planning to provide 300 million won or a permanent rental apartment for the third child given birth to by Booyoung employees, it said.
It is the first time for a South Korean company to give such a high fertility incentive in cash to its workers.
"With the current pace of declining birth rate, the country is expected to be at risk of extinction 20 years from now. The company has adopted the 'unprecedented' incentives for employee families to help ease their financial burdens and difficulties in balancing work and life," Chairman Lee Joong-keun said.
South Korea's fertility rate-- the number of children that are expected to be born to a woman over her lifetime -- hit a record low of 0.78 in 2022, far below other major countries.
It was much lower than the replacement level of 2.1 that would keep South Korea's population stable at the 50 million level.
Statistics Korea projected a decline in the number of newborns, which amounted to 250,000 in 2022, to 220,000 in 2025 and further drop to 160,000 by 2072.
This photo taken Feb. 5, 2024 and provided by Booyoung Group shows the company's Chairman Lee Joong-keun posing for a photo with an employee family after delivering 100 million won in cash to boost birth rates at the group's headquarters in central Seoul. (Yonhap)