How to fix Korea's birthrate? Put girls in school earlier, controversial report argues

A report suggesting girls begin school a year earlier than boys in order to raise Korea's birthrate has faced strong backlash.

The state-run Korea Institute of Public Finance is facing backlash for publishing a report that suggests girls enroll in school a year earlier than boys to raise the country's birth rate. Illustration by Kim Jee-yoon. [JOONGANG ILBO]

A state-run institution in Korea published a report suggesting that girls enroll in school a year earlier than boys to raise the country's birthrate, drawing strong backlash for being “regressive and sexually discriminatory.”

The argument was outlined in a report titled “Suggestions on fiscal policy to address the decrease in the proportion of the working-age population” and published in the Korea Institute of Public Finance (KIPF)’s May edition of its monthly “Public Finance Forum.” The report’s author, Chang Woo-hyun, has a background in economics and is a senior researcher at the KIPF. He characterizes Korea’s population issues as stemming from “a decrease in the proportion of working-age population” and details a plan to increase the country's birthrate in stages as a remedy.

Notably, Chang's report claims that biological females develop earlier than males do, so requiring girls to enter school at younger ages will create classes in which the two sexes are of more equal maturity as they age. This, the author posits, makes it more likely that those classmates will be attracted to each other, and marry and have children further down the line.

“Considering that males mature slower than females, having females enroll one year earlier will contribute toward men and women in their prime age [for marriage] feeling more attraction toward each other,” Chang writes.

The report does not include evidence of any correlation between female students' early enrollment and the success rate of their romantic relationships with men. The author also does not detail specific mechanisms by which his proposed policy would increase romantic attraction or birthrates.

Chang's outline of such “policies for successful relationships between men and women” currently faces the most scrutiny. Chang also argued that the government must arrange meetings for men and women and support self-improvement programs to enhance their attractiveness in the eyes of the other sex.

Another measure suggested in the KIPF publication was relocating retirees overseas. “Sending the older population to spend their retirement in nations that have cheaper living expenses and nicer climates will increase the proportion of the working-age population,” the report suggested.

The publication faced backlash from academics and onlookers immediately after its release.

“Such claims will naturally raise concerns about sex-based discrimination,” said Seol Dong-hoon, a sociology professor at Jeonbuk National University. “It is a very thoughtless suggestion and one that caused unnecessary controversy.”

“Sending the elderly overseas and making the young generation have babies as if they were products stamped out of factories to increase the working population is oppressive and regressive,” said Shin Gyeong-a, a sociology professor at Hallym University. “That such a report, without any screening, was published in a democratic country — by a state-run research institute that will evaluate measures to address low birthrates in the future, no less — is ridiculous.”

The Yoon Suk Yeol administration previously announced that it would establish a center for population policy evaluation under the KIPF with the task of evaluating proposals to address issues related to Korea's low birthrate and aging population.

Onlookers also voiced concerns about the report online. Some said such policies would “actually decrease the birthrate even more” while others expressed doubt that “Millennials and Generation Z will want to get married and have babies in [such] a social climate as now.”

Following the backlash, the KIPF released a statement saying that the report was the author’s opinion and did not reflect the institution’s official views.

It is not the first time the government has proposed lowering the elementary school enrollment age to address the low birthrate. The conservative Saenuri Party proposed in 2015 allowing students to enroll from the age of five and reducing the length of primary and secondary education to 10 years. The Lee Myung-bak administration, in 2009, also suggested that enrollment begin a year earlier. Such policies were put forth with the goal of allowing students to graduate and begin their careers earlier, as well as marry and have children at a younger age. They were not explicitly intended to bolster romantic attraction between men and women, as Chang's proposal is, nor did they segregate enrollment age by sex.

BY YI WOO-LIM [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]