Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, “Immigration policy emerges as solution to South Korea’s low fertility rate.”

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon gives a lecture on the theme, “Seoul, a global city going together with the vulnerable” at Luce Hall, Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut on September 21 (local time). Courtesy of the Seoul Metropolitan Government

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon presented the immigration policy as a solution to the low birthrate problem in South Korean society in a lecture at Yale University. According to the city of Seoul on September 24, Mayor Oh mentioned the immigration policy in a lecture at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University at 5 p.m. (local time) September 21 during a business trip to North America.

The Seoul mayor introduced programs on the topic, “together with the vulnerable,” which is a key direction of the municipal administration in Seoul, to over two hundred students and faculty and answered questions from the audience. As for the problem of the low fertility rate, which has aggravated with the total fertility rate of Seoul recording 0.59 last year, Mayor Oh mentioned an immigration policy and said, “Since it’s a very sensitive issue, they don’t mention it in South Korea, but it has emerged recently as a solution.”

Oh mentioned that many Southeast Asian students came to South Korea to study and said the capital city was trying to provide an environment that could help them better settle down. He pointed to the cost of educating one’s children as a major cause of the low birthrate and said, “Many young people think the cost of education is too high.”

As for the gender issue, Mayor Oh claimed that gender equality has yet to be achieved in businesses and politics and called for the South Korean society to put in more effort on the issue. He also said that feminism in South Korea clashed in peculiar areas and was radical. He further explained that South Korea was historically a male-dominant society and suggested that that may be why “feminism became much more aggressive,” as a reaction to such a society.

One person pointed out that unlike how Mayor Oh had advocated selective welfare in the past, opposing free school meals for all, the Climate Card (card providing unlimited access to public transportation), which the Seoul metropolitan government recently announced, could be seen as a universal welfare policy causing confusion. Oh Se-hoon explained that the Climate Card was a policy that would benefit people in hard times more and said, “There is no change to my philosophy (for selective benefits) even now.”

Prior to the lecture, the Seoul Mayor met with Peter Salovey, president of Yale University. When Salovey mentioned that he heard that Oh was a strong candidate for president, Oh answered, “As a four-time mayor of Seoul, I am only seeking a fifth term.”