Of all the problems in South Korea, one is absolutely shocking: it has the lowest birth rate in the world, at 0.72 children per woman. Governments and administrations have passed in recent years, but no one has been able to stop the super baby vouchers or the bizarre idea that girls should start school earlier. The latest measure is a symptom of the crisis: they are forced to hire foreign nannies.

Babysitters and visas. As part of its strategy, the government announced the hiring of 100 Filipino nannies who can now work in the country. The measure is just the beginning as around 1,200 foreign nannies are expected to be brought in by the first half of 2025.

A problem with no solution. Despite government efforts over the past 17 years, including spending 380 trillion won (about $284 billion) on various incentives to increase fertility, the birth rate has continued to fall. The situation is so dire that Seoul has warned that the country could become the first country in the world to perish from this demographic decline.

What’s more, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s own administration has acknowledged that drastic measures are needed to reverse this trend, and this is the first of the ideas: bringing in foreign nannies in an effort to ease the burden of childcare on working parents, especially in dual-income households, and ultimately increase the birth rate.

New policy. According to the government, the participants will be women between the ages of 24 and 38 who have a National Level II Care Certificate from the Philippine government and have received comprehensive training. According to the government, their skills include childcare, housekeeping, and basic knowledge of the Korean language.

In addition, the workers will do so on E-9 visas, which allow employment in non-professional sectors in the country, and will be part of a pilot program limited to Seoul residents. The six-month program aims to provide affordable childcare to households with children under 12, single-parent families and families with multiple children.

Who pays for the party? The lack of affordable childcare is one of the biggest concerns for working parents, making the question more pertinent than ever: who pays for babysitters? According to the Seoul government, hiring a foreign nanny for eight hours a day can cost households around 2.38 million won a month—nearly half the average monthly income of Korean households.

This has raised many questions about the affordability of the program for average Korean families. “We see complaints about the cost burden of foreign Filipino maids,” You Hye-mi, the president’s chief of staff, said in a recent interview. “So we are trying to explore ways to ease the burden on individual households to hire them.”

Minimum wage debate The program has also drawn criticism from labor activists and immigrant rights groups. This happened last year when Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon offered to hire foreign nannies at a monthly cost of about 1 million won, significantly below the minimum wage in South Korea.

Not only that. Representative Cho Jung-hun has also proposed a bill that would exempt migrant domestic workers from the law’s minimum wage requirement, arguing that such workers’ wages should be at the same level as wages in their home countries, a move widely criticized by human rights groups as violating the rights of foreign workers and breaching International Labor Organization (ILO) standards.

What about the birth rate? As we said at the beginning, bringing in foreign nannies is part of the government’s broader efforts to increase female participation in the workforce, which is seen as essential to improving the country’s birth rate. The number of dual-income households in South Korea has been steadily increasing, reaching 5.82 million in 2021. The problem is that many women are leaving the workforce due to childcare responsibilities.

So by offering more affordable childcare options, the government hopes to create a more conducive environment for young couples to have children, thus theoretically addressing the alarmingly declining birth rate.

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