NewsWire: 2/3/21
- South Korea has announced the creation of a new task force that will focus on helping the country adjust to a shrinking and aging population. Officials’ approach to population policy will now be two-pronged, with efforts to boost births continuing but no longer the dominant strategy. (Bloomberg)
- NH: In the wake of its first population decline (see “South Korea’s Population Shrinks”), South Korea is switching gears. After years of failed efforts to raise the birth rate, Moon Jae-in's government is launching a new task force whose goal is to adapt to a shrinking and aging population.
- To minimize the effects of population decline, the task force is expected to propose policies that encourage women and seniors to stay in the workforce and the creation of a new visa to draw researchers and other professional workers from overseas. It will propose support to retired people who want to start their own businesses. The government also plans to expand the protections and benefits currently available to married heterosexual couples to non-traditional families, including single parents and unmarried cohabiting partners. (Same-sex couples are not included.) Officials will release further information in May.
- The new task force resembles Japan’s recent efforts to train robots to carry out military duties (see “Low-Fertility Countries Look to Robot Soldiers”) and China’s suggestion that its rules on family size be more "inclusive" (see “China Says Goodbye to Family Planning”). South Korea isn’t giving up on pronatalist policies, but officials are acknowledging that a baby boom just isn’t going to happen anytime soon. At the same time, in focusing its recruitment efforts on white-collar workers and excluding same-sex couples from family benefits, South Korea is signaling--like China--that it is not yet willing to take on a large immigrant inflow nor abandon the traditional Confucian family ideal.
