How A South Korean Construction Company Wants To Fight Low Birth Rates

The Booyoung Group offers employees $75,000 per baby to combat low birth rates.

Pediatrician Song Jong-geun performs a medical treatment on a baby as his mother Jung Seung-yeon, 38, looks on at his pediatric clinic in Seoul, South Korea, June 14, 2023. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

A construction firm based in South Korea has expressed its readiness to pay millions of dollars to help address the country’s rather low and abysmal birth rate.

Booyoung Group in a press statement issued on February 5, 2024 said it plans to pay its employees about 100 million Korean won which is equivalent to $75,000 each time they have a baby.

The group further said it will make cash payments amounting to a total of 7 billion Korean won ($5.25 million) to employees who have had about 70 babies since 2021.

According to a company spokesperson who spoke with CNN Business, the financial benefits will go to both men and women working at the firm.

In 2022, South Korea recorded the lowest fertility rate in the world at 0.78. This represented the average number of children a woman would ordinarily have in her lifetime.

In ratio terms, the figures are projected to further decline to 0.65 in 2025 per official forecasts made by Statistics Korea.

The low birth rate is not only prevalent in South Korea but has seen the demographic spread throughout other East Asian countries, many facing a similar issue.

Also in Europe, many countries are experiencing an aging population coupled with the impacts associated with immigration. So far, nations like China, Japan and South Korea have refused to rely on mass immigration to address the decline in their respective workforce population.

Meanwhile, Chairman of Booyoung Group, Lee Joong-Keun who speaking at staff event held on Monday shared that the company is keen on offering “direct financial support” to ease the financial burden on its employees who are raising children.

This, for him will also help support South Korea’s quest towards addressing the abysmal and low birth rate which is on a decline.

Under the incentive, employees at Booyoung Group who have three babies will be given the option to choose whether they receive benefits amounting to 300 million Korean won ($225,000) in cash or rental housing.

This is however premised on the South Korean government providing land for construction works at the firm.

“I hope we would get recognized as a company that contributes to encouraging births… and worries about the country’s future,” Lee Joong-Keun told employees.

The South Korean government and other private firms already offer certain financial benefits to encourage their citizens and employees to have more children but the latest development by Booyoung Group can be seen as one of the largest on a scale to be granted.

The construction firm which was established in 1983 has added over 270,000 homes to its portfolio.