S. Koreans see red over map of areas in pink of fertility health

Govt accused of likening women to livestock, blasted for misogyny

A post-natal care centre in Haenam, ranked as No. 1 by birth rate in South Korea, with 2.46 babies per woman. The country's birth rate has plunged to around 1.2 per woman, well below the "replacement level" of 2.1 children.
A post-natal care centre in Haenam, ranked as No. 1 by birth rate in South Korea, with 2.46 babies per woman. The country's birth rate has plunged to around 1.2 per woman, well below the "replacement level" of 2.1 children. PHOTO: NYTIMES

SEOUL • For years, local officials in South Korea, which has one of the world's lowest birth rates, have tried ever more inventive plans to encourage women to have babies.

They have offered generous maternity-leave policies, cash allowances and even boxes of beef and baby clothes to families with newborn babies. Then the national government tried its hand.

Last Thursday, it rolled out an online "birth map" that used shades of pink to rank towns and cities by the number of women of childbearing age. But the reaction was so overwhelmingly negative, especially among women, that the website was shut down within hours of its introduction.

"They counted fertile women like they counted the number of livestock," an angry blogger wrote in an online commentary with the headline "Are Women Livestock?"

"Did they think that men would flock to a town with more childbearing-age women?"

A low birth rate is one of South Korea's most urgent socio-economic challenges. Amid rising costs of living and education, women are increasingly moving into the job market, but they often find it all but impossible to keep their careers and raise children at the same time.

Many women still feel pressure to quit their jobs once they become pregnant. For many women working in the private sector, especially those employed at smaller businesses, an extended parental leave with the option of returning to work remains a dream (by law, one can take up to a year off). Even if a woman returns to work, finding affordable day care centres can be difficult, although the government is racing to add more of them.

And looking after a child is still largely seen as a woman's job even when she works outside the home.

So with such pressures at work and at home, many women choose to remain single or marry late and have only one child, or none.

South Korea's fertility rate, as high as six babies per woman in 1960, plunged to around 1.2 per woman in recent years, well below the "replacement level" of 2.1 children, a rate that allows a society to maintain its population without immigration.

The Ministry of the Interior's birth map derived from efforts to reverse the downward trend.

The map showed regions with a higher number of women of childbearing age coloured in dark pink. The colour lightened for regions with a smaller number of such women. The map also ranked the regions by birth rate, and provided information on benefits local governments offered to families with babies.

According to the map, Haenam, a county in the south-west, ranked No. 1 with 2.46 babies per woman, while Jongro, a ward in the capital Seoul, ranked at the bottom with a rate of 0.81.

When the map was introduced, the ministry said it was intended to "promote competition" among towns to produce more babies. The idea did not click with many.

"It's truly deplorable because the map shows that the government considers women as nothing but baby- producing machines," said a spokesman for the opposition Justice Party Han Chang Min. "It shows the government sees birth rates just as a woman's problem."

Many other South Koreans said the map only proved the government's failure to understand what caused the low birth rate.

One Twitter user, who believed that the map reflected misogyny in a government in which most of the top posts are filled by men, went so far as to create a mock rival map that ranked towns by the number of "men with sexual dysfunction".

The government's website remained offline on Friday, showing a notice that it was under repair to reflect "corrections".

NYTIMES

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on January 01, 2017, with the headline S. Koreans see red over map of areas in pink of fertility health. Subscribe