Seoul Metropolitan Government's Unexpected Housing Support for Newly Weds...Will my birth control work?

[Anchor]
Various support policy experiments are being conducted in Seoul to solve the low birth rate problem.

In particular, I am very interested in the "pre-home" policy to support newlyweds' housing.

Reporter Kim Hyun-ah reports on whether the Seoul Metropolitan Government's "Birth Seoul" housing experiment can solve the marriage and childbirth concerns of young people.

[Reporter]
The Seoul Metropolitan Government will supply 4,000 units of "my house in advance" every year starting next year as a countermeasure for low birthrates.

It's half-price rental, and if you have one child, you can get your own house 10% cheaper than the market price, and if you have two children, you can get your own house 20% cheaper.

Income standards have also been raised significantly enough to challenge even most dual-income couples.

[Oh Se-hoon / Mayor of Seoul (May 28): We will supply about 4,000 houses every year, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government will be responsible for providing about 10% of newlyweds who get married a year with a child and raise them with confidence.]

The reason why there is a huge benefit to maternity families is that a meaningful connection between housing stability and fertility rates has been found.

Even if all kinds of support were poured into overcoming low birthrates, the "vaxxed medicine was invalid" in the end, but the fertility rate for newlyweds living in long-term lease homes was high.

[Kim Joong-baek / Professor of sociology at Kyung Hee University: The fact that young people wrote that the white medicine is invalid without new apartments that they can own (as a measure of low birth rate) means that for those born in 1990s and 00s, housing is an apartment, and apartments are "close to work" and an apartment with a protected nurturing environment..]

However, it is clear that housing stability is not an 'universal key' to increase the birth rate.

[Yoo Hye-jeong / Director of Population Research Center, Korean Peninsula Future Research Institute: We need to build a stable labor market or an economic environment, and if these things don't go hand in hand, I think childbirth will be stratified or polarized no matter how tight the housing policy is.]

In the end, it is pointed out that companies and society should change their perception of childbirth and childcare as "costs" along with housing policies to create a society where work-family balance is possible.

I'm Kim Hyunah of YTN.


Video editing: Lee Young-hoon
Design: Ji Kyung-yoon