What's behind Sejong City's high birthrate?

In this 2018 March file photo, kids engage in outdoor activities at Sejong City. Korea Times file

In Sejong, stable jobs, childcare leave encourage couples to have more babies

By Yoon Ja-young

SEJONG ― It is no news that Korea's birthrate has been falling to a new record low every year. Last year, 272,300 babies were born, a 10 percent drop from the previous year. Korea's total birthrate, or the number of babies a woman chooses to have, recorded 0.84, which is by far the lowest in the world. Korea is the only member of the OECD ― a group of mostly high-income economies with low birthrates ― that has a figure below 1. This year alone, the government has been pouring in 36 trillion won to pull up the rate, but to no avail. Few believe the trend of Koreans having fewer babies will turn around anytime soon.

If there is one exception in the country, it would be Sejong. The newly built administrative city centered on central government ministries relocated from Seoul, the capital, recorded a total fertility rate of 1.28 last year, which is twice as high as the 0.64 rate of Seoul.

"The total fertility rate of Sejong is closer to the OECD average. It is largely because teachers and government workers can take three years of childcare leave, which would be difficult at private firms," former Rep. Yoo Seong-min, a presidential contender of the main opposition People Power Party, said in a recent debate, pledging a combined six years of childcare leave for parents if he becomes president.

It is true that the government officials are relatively free to take childcare leave. They can take three years of leave per child on top of the maternity leave. There are some cases of government officials or school teachers being on leave for nearly 10 years as they add up the leave time accrued when having three kids. Their jobs are guaranteed for when they come back to work. This situation contrasts with the private sector, where workers still refrain from taking longer periods of childcare leave due to concerns about facing possible disadvantages in the workplace from their management.

Stable jobs also help them have more babies. According to 2016 data by former Rep. Shin Sang-jin, 32.7 babies were born per 1,000 government officials, which is more than twice the number of babies born per 1,000 ordinary citizens with similar ages in the same year, 14.5.

Good infrastructure for childcare

Not everyone in Sejong, however, works for the government. Those working as government employees in various professions ― from social welfare to administrative positions ― took up only 18.1 percent of the city's total working population as of the second quarter of last year, so there is clearly more behind Sejong's relatively high birthrate.

Jeon, a housewife who moved from Pyeongchon, Gyeonggi Province, gave birth to her third child after moving to Sejong. As of 2018, 11.2 percent of families with kids had three kids or more in Sejong, which compares with Seoul's 7.4 percent.

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"Families with three kids are so common here. I am not sure I would have had three kids if I hadn't moved to Sejong," she said.

Thanks to his short commute time, her husband drops their kids off at school every morning while heading to work, which is a great help to her.

Jeon also picked the plethora of government-run kindergartens ― seen as a more affordable, trustworthy and transparently managed, non-profit type of kindergarten ― as an advantage of Sejong. Approximately 96.7 percent of all kindergartens in Sejong are government-run, while only one out of four kids in Seoul go to government-run kindergartens.

"Some parents don't like public kindergartens, as the curriculum there lets children freely play rather than study. But I think the good facilities and the transparent management make it attractive enough. Most of all, it is free," she said.

As Sejong is a planned city, it has many parks and playgrounds for kids, where they can safely play or ride their bicycles. Elementary schools are situated in a way that can minimize kids having to cross roads on their way to school. In 2017, the number of kids who were hurt or died in traffic accidents while walking recorded 38 cases per 100,000 in Sejong, which is half of the nationwide average of 79.7.

Skyrocketing housing prices lead to fewer babies

Statistics show that relatively low housing costs in Sejong have also helped residents have more babies. According to a report by the Board of Audit and Inspection, government officials who moved to Sejong had more children than their colleagues who stayed in Seoul. While civil servants in Sejong had on average 1.89 kids, those in Seoul had only 1.36.

In recent years, there have been dozens of studies on the correlation between housing and childbirth published in Korea's academic journals and research institutes. High housing costs make couples delay marriage. Childbirth is affected if the couple has unstable housing after marriage, or if there is the burden of paying back a huge mortgage.

According to research by the Korea Economic Research Institute, the possibility of giving birth to the first child decreases by 10.1 percentage points if a couple is renting their apartment via the Korean "jeonse" system, compared with those who own their own homes. Jeonse is a rental system unique to Korea in which the tenants pay a lump-sum deposit instead of a monthly rent, and get the full deposit back at the expiration of the lease. In the case of couples paying monthly rent, the possibility of having the first child drops by 19.5 percentage points.

"As a basic necessity of life, housing has huge impact on the quality of life for individuals as well as households," said Yoo Jin-sung, a research fellow at the KERI.

"The burden of housing negatively affects both marriage and childbirth. It aggravates the already serious low birthrate," he added.

While couples in Seoul typically delay having children due to the soaring cost of housing, young couples were drawn to Sejong as jeonse prices were especially low, thanks in part to the continuous supply of new apartments, as well as to Sejong's location in a province outside of the Seoul area.

The sudden rise of apartment prices last year, however, is posing a threat to Sejong's relatively high birthrate. According to data by the Korea Real Estate Board, housing prices in Sejong rose 37.1 percent last year, the highest ever since the new city was formed administratively in 2012, through joining lands formerly part of the areas of Yeongi County, Gongju City and Cheongwon County. Possibly affected by the higher housing prices, the number of newborns in Sejong recorded 3,468 last year, which is down 351 from the previous year. It is the first time that Sejong has seen its number of births decline since 2012.