Senator of Han-nara party, Mr. Won, decide to introduce a bill which make people realize the structure change of our nation’s population, ideal scale of population, marriage & child birth and the importance of family “The bill which support population education” during next week. In addition, the principle office of this affair ’sanitation, welfare, family department’ accept the introduce affirmatively.
The Korean government had spread a family planning program which emphasized on the importance of birth control since 1961. Watchwords which were written like “나라사랑 피임으로” (meaning “to love the country with contraceptives”) and signboard which showed increasing population per second awoke people to a sense of sin for giving birth. However in 1994, at the UN ICPD (International Conference on Population and Development )Korean government proclaimed renounce of the policy which concerned about population planning formally.
Poster1 which was produced in 70's.
It describes population explosion.
Poster2 which was produced in 80's
It is written 'Even then you have only son, the whole land of Korea is bursting'
Hereupon, in 1998, the Birth Control Association in Korea discontinued population education completely, then the birth control disappeared. Ever since, however, birth-rate have been on the decrease, then low fertility and population ageing has became an serious object of national concern, finally the necessity of population education is renounced again. Total birth-rate per every married couple of Korea in last year was 1.19 and that number came short of the standard (1.73) and the lowest among OECD member nations.
According to the bill which will be introduced to the government, almost everyone will be educated about population planning (students will be educated in their school, and the adults will be educated in the army or their workplace). In addition the central government and the local government will support the cost and the human strength to this affair and it make a plan to establish population education center per each province, develop teaching materials and education program and specialist on this field.
The purport of this bill is re-built of a sense of value to increase the population. There is a limit as such a childcare aid so it begins by reforming of nation’s consciousness. Senator Won also said “To have right sense of value and attitude toward an aging society, respect for life, conception for family and multicultural is a fundamental solution which can cope with the situation (low fertility and population ageing)
Park Su-mi who is a team leader of Korean Women Policy Research said “It is true that the family planning program was successful with education and public relation” and she added “nevertheless it can be successful with some practical policies like lightening the expenses which were burden to parents like childcare, education ”
2000's
It is written 'Mother,father I hate being an only child,
I want a little bro. or sis. '.
I like this article, but I think that the proposal is weak. I agree with Su-mi Park, who advocated addressing the real problems of childcare (not just affordability, but also acceptability) and education.
ReplyDeleteI also think that there is another big issue that is being overlooked. Many women feel that when they have children their life is over. They are pressured to quit their careers and stay at home. I see a sizable number of women putting off marriage and child-rearing due to this fear.
What do you think?
Dan
It has been chaged a lot,however,it is real situation in Korea. Many career woman get fired during their pregnancy. Moreover some company advice to resign to future mother. I mean it is not useless fear, it is the fear which is impending to 'working mom'. I don't really like to say no prize for guessing solution but....it depends on policy!
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of policy do you think would encourage women to have (more) children?
ReplyDeleteDan