Booyoung offers employees $75,000 per birth

[Photo by Han Joo-hyung]

South Korean builder Booyoung Group said Monday that it will provide employees with 100 million won ($75,000) in cash per birth to help boost the country’s record-low birth rate. The policy will apply to children born after 2021, with a one-time payment of 100 million won per child.

Booyoung’s policy is a significant move by a private company to implement an efficient childbirth incentive program amid the country’s unprecedentedly low birth rate that raises the risk of ‘national extinction.’

Korea’s total fertility rate was 0.78 children per woman in 2022, the lowest among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries. Even with the government spending 280 trillion won on low birth rate policies over the past 15 years, the birth rate continues to plummet.

Industry interest in this “groundbreaking policy” by a private company, which supports families with 100 million won per child, is rapidly growing as it is something that even the government has struggled to achieve.

It now remains to be seen whether Booyoung’s unconventional low birth rate policy will spread to other companies and the public sector.

“We came up with this incentive program because we understand that population growth is a very important issue for our country,” Booyoung Group Chairman Lee Joong-keun said.