This Korean company pays employees $75,000 for every child they have

South Korea’s birth rate has been on a downward trend since 2015 (representative)

New Delhi:

An architecture firm in Seoul has come up with a unique way to help solve the country’s alarmingly low birth rate. Booyoung Group is willing to pay its employees 100 million won ($75,000 or Rs. 62,26,106) for every child they have.

According to the report CNNThe company said in a press release that it will pay a total of 7 billion won ($5.25 million or Rs 43,58,27,437) in cash to employees who have given birth to a total of 70 children since 2021.

The company confirmed that the benefit will apply to both male and female employees. “I hope we can be recognized as a company that contributes to encouraging childbirth and worrying about the country’s future,” Furong Group Chairman Lee Jung-geun said of the move.

Mr. Joong-keun explained that the company aims to ease employees’ financial burden of raising children through direct financial support, adding that employees with three children will have a special option to choose the benefits they want to receive. They can choose “300 million won ($225,000 or Rs 1,86,78,318) in cash or rented housing if the government provides land for construction.”

The company’s move comes as South Korea’s fertility rate is dangerously low. In 2022, South Korea’s fertility rate reached 0.78, the lowest in the world, and is expected to drop to 0.65 in 2025. Statistics Korea.

Fertility rate refers to the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime.

South Korea’s birth rate has been declining since 2015. Dire predictions for December 2023By 2026, the country’s birth rate could fall to 0.59, reaching a population level not seen since the 1970s. Although authorities expect the birth rate to gradually recover to 1.08 by 2072, the figure is still well below the threshold of 2.1 children per woman required for population stability without immigration. South Korea’s total population is expected to fall from 51.75 million in 2024 to 36.22 million, the highest level since 1977.