Kids later than sooner. South Korean women freeze eggs as child-rearing costs surge

SEOUL, Could 13 (Reuters) – In South Korea, fewer girls are having youngsters and people who do are in no rush. The sky-high prices of housing and schooling make monetary safety a should. Social mores additionally dictate the should be married.

Lim Eun-young, a 34-year-old public servant, says she just isn’t prepared to begin a household because of the prices and as she solely started relationship her boyfriend a number of months in the past. However fearful that her organic clock is ticking, she had a few of her eggs frozen in November.

Lim was one among about 1,200 single single girls who underwent the process final yr at CHA Medical Middle – a quantity that has doubled over two years. CHA is South Korea’s largest fertility clinic chain with about 30% of the IVF market.

“It is a large reduction and it provides me peace of thoughts to know that I’ve wholesome eggs frozen proper right here,” she stated.

Freezing eggs to purchase reproductive time is an choice more and more explored by girls worldwide. However in South Korea, which has the doubtful distinction of getting one of many world’s lowest fertility charges, the dramatic leap in girls utilizing CHA’s providers throws into sharp reduction the financial burdens and social constraints resulting in choices to delay and even forgo having youngsters.

The fertility price – the common variety of youngsters born to a lady over her reproductive life – in South Korea was simply 0.81 final yr. That compares with a mean price of 1.59 for OECD nations in 2020.

That is additionally regardless of huge sums spent by South Korean authorities on subsidies and perks for households with youngsters. The federal government budgeted 46.7 trillion gained ($37 billion) final yr to fund insurance policies geared toward tackling the nation’s low beginning price.

A lot of the blame for South Korean reticence to have youngsters is laid on a extremely aggressive and costly schooling system that makes cram faculties and personal tutoring a reality of life for most children from a younger age.

“We hear from married {couples} and watch actuality TV exhibits about how costly it’s to lift children when it comes to schooling prices and every little thing, and all these worries translate to fewer marriages and infants,” stated Lim.

Housing prices have additionally surged. A mean condo in Seoul, as an illustration, prices an estimated 19 years of South Korea’s median annual family earnings, up from 11 years in 2017.

Cho So-Younger, a 32-year-old nurse at CHA who plans to freeze her eggs this coming July, can be eager to get to a greater place financially earlier than having a baby.

“If I get married now and provides beginning, I can not give my child the type of atmosphere I had after I grew up…I would like higher housing, a greater neighbourhood and higher meals to eat,” she stated.

However even when funds are much less of a consideration, being married is seen as a prerequisite to having youngsters in South Korea. Simply 2% of births in South Korea happen out of wedlock in comparison with a mean of 41% for OECD nations.

In truth, whereas single South Korean girls are capable of freeze their eggs, they cannot legally proceed with a sperm donation and the implanting of an embryo except married – a difficulty thrust into the highlight by Sayuri Fujita, a Japanese superstar and single mom primarily based in South Korea who had to return to Japan for a sperm donation.

That should change, argues Jung Jae-hoon, a social welfare research professor at Seoul Ladies’s College, noting marriages in South Korea dropped to a document low of 192,500 final yr. That is down round 40% from a decade earlier. Even when marriage ranges in 2019 to low cost the impact of the pandemic, the decline continues to be an enormous 27%.

“The least the federal government can do is to not get in the best way of these on the market who’re prepared to shoulder the monetary burden of getting a child,” he stated.

Much more worrying are the statistics exhibiting a pointy drop-off in willingness to have youngsters in any respect.

Some 52% of South Koreans of their 20s do not plan to have youngsters once they get married, an enormous leap from 29% in 2015, in keeping with a survey carried out in 2020 by the nation’s gender and household ministry.

($1 = 1,276 gained)

Reporting by Cynthia Kim; Further reporting by Do-Gyun Kim and Dae-woung Kim; Enhancing by Edwina Gibbs

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