New visa for foreign carers to cope with demographic crisis

A pilot project supported by the Ministry of Labour includes the E-9 permit for foreign domestic workers. The measure is part of South Korea’s attempt to encourage couples to have more children and mitigate the effects of a declining birth rate. However, it also raises concerns about workers’ exploitation.

Seoul (AsiaNews) – The City of Seoul and South Korea’s Ministry of Labour have proposed a pilot project to extend the E-9 visa to foreign domestic workers to make it easier for families to hire domestic help, especially from Southeast Asia, and lower costs.

The authorities hope that younger, cheaper workers will reduce the number of South Korean women forced to abandon their jobs to devote themselves to family work, while having positive spillover effects on the country's demographic crisis.

During the project, which could start as early as next fall, foreign domestic workers will receive a minimum wage of about seven dollars per hour, significantly less than what South Korean workers are paid.

The proposal has raised serious doubts, especially among South Korean carers who fear losing their jobs, and foreign workers concerned about abuse.

Women workers from Southeast Asia tend to be younger, but also less educated and more vulnerable.

According to a study by Amnesty International, foreign staff in South Korea, mostly women,  face unfavourable conditions, including discrimination (over wages for example), poor communications, and lack of an adequate system of protection.

Despite this, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon backs the initiative. Last year, he had made a similar proposal, inspired by projects implemented in Hong Kong and Singapore.

E-9 visa extension follows a series of measures undertaken to counter a falling birth rate, like the Happy Parents Project, which helps families with two or more children.

In addition to an extremely low birth rate, the country is also facing urban flight. Housing prices are one factor, skyrocketing since 2017. In Seoul for instance, the population dropped from 10.97 million in 1992 to 9.49 million in 2022.

Although South Korea’s population started to decline only in 2021, the country's fertility rate began to decline in the 1960s. According to the latest data by Statistics Korea, the fertility rate stood at 0.78 in 2022 with a 4.4 per cent reduction in births compared to the previous year.

This is the lowest figure among all the members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Since 2005, the fight against the collapsing birth rate has become one of the policy priorities for successive South Korean governments with more than US$ 200 billion spent on them since 2016 but without the desired results.

The reasons behind the falling birth rate are multiple but all linked one way or another to a work ethic that does not allow a proper work-family balance.

As a result, women's desire to marry and start a family has been stifled if the price is sacrificing their professional ambitions. Added to this are the rising costs of housing and raising children.

According to a study by the Beijing-based think-tank YuWa Population Research Institute, South Korea is the most expensive country in the world to raise a child up to 18 because of the costs of education, which are rising in a country known for extreme competitiveness.

For South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and his government, the demographic crisis could become their biggest challenge. Recently, he ordered a reassessment of current population policies to identify the reasons for their failure.

Such a review might show the multifaceted nature of the falling birth rate and lead to new, less one-dimensional solutions, more suited to a country reassessing its relationship to family planning.

• south korea
• demographics
• depopulation
• family planning
• yoon suk-yeol