Price of parenthood: South Koreans spend big on enrichment to get kids ahead

SEOUL – Sarah Kim often finds herself torn between wanting to shield her only daughter from burnout and fearing that the 10-year-old could be left behind if she does not keep pace with South Korea’s hyper-competitive education culture.

So while she fills her daughter Noh Seung-ah’s after-school hours with enrichment programmes, she deliberately chooses academies that assign little to no homework to avoid overburdening her child.

Kim and her husband, both office workers aged 46, currently spend about 1.5 million won (S$1,300) a month on English, mathematics, reading, in-line skating, sandplay therapy and art lessons. The aim is to help Seung-ah stay on top of the school curriculum while exposing her to a range of activities.

Kim herself grew up outside Seoul without the pressures of intensive private education, which many parents believed even then would help their children get ahead.

Perhaps my insistence on minimising homework is also a psychological defence mechanism – a way to ease the guilt that comes with sending my child from school straight into after-school programmes simply because I am a working mother.

Sarah Kim

Office worker

For working parents such as Kim, private academies often double as childcare.

In addition, Kim gives her mother a monthly stipend of one million won for caring for Seung-ah in the evenings before she and her husband return home from work. She considers herself lucky, as she says many families lack extended family support and have to pay for caregivers instead.

The couple’s combined monthly household income is about 15 million won, of which 3.5 million won is spent on their daughter – covering clothing, food, school fees and supplies, academy lessons and leisure activities.

Kim decided against having a second child because of her age, the financial burden and the guilt of placing additional strain on her colleagues by taking maternity leave.

According to a survey released in 2025 by South Korea’s Education Ministry, the average cost of raising a child to the age of 18 is 1.115 million won a month.

Other parents ST spoke to estimated their monthly expenditures for their children at 1.4 million to 2.2 million won per month.

To reverse the country’s flagging total fertility rate, which fell to 0.8 in 2025, the government offers a wide range of cash allowances, from prenatal care to a child’s seventh birthday, with benefits totalling up to 30 million won per child. That covers about one-third of the total cost of raising a child until the age of seven.

But for another parent of an only child, Kim Se-hwa, financial considerations were not the main issue.

Instead, it was the lack of childcare support that led her to quit her administrative job at a law firm after the birth of her son, Choi Ji-o, six years ago.

In South Korea, extended families have traditionally played a crucial role in caring for children while the parents work. But the option was not available to Kim and her husband.

The 41-year-old homemaker said she and her husband had agreed before marriage to have a single child, believing that devoting their full time, attention and financial resources to an only child was the most responsible approach to parenting.

I believe the cost of raising children and the highly competitive atmosphere in South Korean society have a huge influence on whether people decide to have children at all. In my case as well, those realistic burdens were a major reason we chose to have only one child.

Kim Se-hwa

Homemaker and mother of one

While declining to disclose her household’s monthly income, Kim said she and her husband, an IT designer, spend about 1.5 million won a month on their only son. The amount covers expenses such as school fees, private academy classes, food, clothing and leisure activities.

Although her son is enrolled only in art, football and physical education classes, she spends about 30 minutes each day guiding him through online and printed worksheets.

Kim believes government policies should focus more on reducing the burden of childcare than simply offering financial incentives.

“The reality is that it is difficult to maintain a dual-income household, and that childcare responsibilities still require certain sacrifices to be made within the family,” she said, adding that she has no regrets about quitting her job.

Another mother, Ahn Se-mi, 39, who works in finance and has two children aged six and four, said her family is less concerned about cost than the intense competition children face in South Korean society.

Her husband’s employer covers the children’s education expenses until university.

“Constant comparisons driven by social media and television programmes are a major issue,” she said.

But even when parents do not want their children to grow up in such a competitive culture, they are often driven by fears that their child will fall behind others, Sarah Kim said.

She laments that most conversations with other parents tend to revolve around finding better academies or more effective private tutors.

“And because I wish I could go against the flow, sometimes I simply close my ears and try not to listen,” she said.