Childcare centers in Korea close due to low birth rate

Kyunghyang Newspaper Material Photo

As the number of births plummets, some 2,000 daycare centers have been closed every year for the past four years. The government has decided to expand 540 public daycare centers this year.

According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare on January 14, there were a total of 28,954 daycare centers across the country as of the end of December last year, 1,969 fewer than a year earlier (30,923). The number of daycare centers nationwide was 35,352 in 2020 and 33,246 in 2021. Due to the low birth rate, the number has been decreasing by about 2,000 every year.

According to Statistics Korea, the number of births per year fell from 484,600 in 2012 to 357,800 in 2017, for the first time to the 300,000 range. It decreased further to 326,800 in 2018 and 302,700 in 2019. In 2020, the number decreased to 272,300 and the number of births stood at 249,200 in 2022.

Children who can attend daycare centers this year are those who were born after 2018. The impact of the decreased number of births falling below 300,000 is likely to have a direct impact on the operation of daycare centers. Over the last four years, 6,398 daycare centers have been closed, making it difficult for parents to find a daycare center near their homes.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said that it will add 540 national and public daycare centers this year taking into account regional specificity and equity, including the supply and demand for childcare. "We plan to respond flexibly by remodeling existing buildings (435 places) rather than building and purchasing new ones," the ministry said. The proportion of children attending state-run daycare centers has increased every year from 20.3 percent in 2020 to 28.3 percent last year.

Recently, the number of private daycare centers closing infant classes is increasing due to difficulties in recruiting children aged 0 to 2. Starting this year, the ministry will provide additional institutional childcare fees for private daycare centers, which run classes for infants aged between 0 and 2, as much as the insufficient number of children, if the current number of children in a class is more than 50 percent of the capacity. The subsidy is 629,000 won per child for 0-year-old classes, 342,000 won per child for 1-year-old classes, and 233,000 won per child for 2-year-old classes. -old classes.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.