Talkin'

Had my speaking test today -- 15 minutes of talking before two of my classmates and the teacher on one topic from a list we were given. I originally figured on talking about work and life, but a chance comment by the only other westerner who consistently comes to class made me rethink my choice. If I did the work/life topic, it'd be easier, but I probably wouldn't use any new vocabulary. So instead, I picked the "population problems" topic. Easy breezy, man! NOT.

We practiced a little bit yesterday in class, and I stumbled through a couple assertions about the link between the status of women in a society and how that's related to declining birth rate -- thankfully, the teacher stopped the torture to give another classmate a chance to practice.

Embarrassed, with a touch of nerdiness, I sent my socially conscious Korean friend a message, asking her to help me out with this topic, and we ended up having dinner together and then talking about population problems. Fascinating stuff! Up until about the 1980s, the birth rate in Korea was on the up slant, but within the last 20 years or so, the birth rate has declined to about 1.2 children per couple. In a couple of decades, if this trend holds, the South Korean population will start to decline.

Women on maternity leave from work currently receive 300,000 won (US$255) per month for each of the three months they are allowed to have. Some policymakers have suggested raising this amount to 400,000 won ($341) per month, plus a flat rate sum of 200,000 won (US$170) for each child when it is born.

"Bullshit." So says my friend, who is due to give birth next month. "There's no woman out there who would say 'Okay, let's have another baby!' just because she's going to get another 100,000 won," she said animatedly. "It is so expensive to have just one child. Another 100,000 won is nothing. Nothing!"

It turns out that while on the whole, there is certainly a relationship between the status of women and birth rate, in Korea, the prevailing issue is money. It's tremendously expensive to raise a child in Korea, primarily because of education costs, and within that, primarily because of private education fees. I've mentioned here before that the UN cited Korea last year for violating children's rights -- primarily because of the oft-maligned (and rightly so) education system that beats the spiritual stuffing out of high school kids who study day and night for the all-important college entrance exam.

But it's not in high school that the process starts. Kids as young as 4 and 5 are enrolled by their parents in hagwons, private educational institutions that teach everything from language and music to physical education (I kid you not). This system is what creates the huge demand for English teachers in Korea. All those college grads who answer the ads calling for any college graduate to come and teach in Korea end up teaching elementary, junior high, and high school kids who come in after their school day and will probably go to another hagwon to learn something else after the English class. If you want to risk it, you can make even bigger money as a tutor to the really rich kids, who get private tutors to come to their houses to help them with any and all subjects under the sun.

Paying for all these hagwons (and some kids go to as many as 8 or 9 in addition to school) is probably the single most expensive part of raising a child -- an expense that is virtually unknown in the States. I did take private music lessons and such as a kid, but never more than one at a time, and my extracurricular activities all took place at school, where they were included in the tuition. In addition, the cost of going to college or graduate school, while not as high as the States, falls entirely on the parents. American community college students would say, "yeah, tell me about it," as they struggle to pay their own tuition, but for the thousands of students who attend state schools and private universities, Uncle Sam doles out a generous dollop of funds per student. Not so in Korea.

You might just say well, then, don't send your kid to these hagwires or whachamacallits. Then you can keep your money and have another kid. But there's where the thinking takes a different road in Korea. In the U.S., most people make a distinction between success and happiness. You can be a wealthy doctor, but if you really wanted to be a postmodern painter, you may not be happy. But in Korea, happiness=success and success=happiness. And the road to success is a very narrow one, with predetermined steps set in stone. What parent doesn't want their kid to be happy? So rather than have two or three kids that they can't fully and completely take care of ("take care of" in this context meaning "send to all the hagwons they can afford; excuse the kid from any work, household or otherwise; and work their fingers to the bone"), the Korean couple will stop at one.

Hence, the declining birth rate.

I blabbed on and on about this during my test today, and at the end, my classmate asked if I would rather educate my future child in Korea or the States. Man, there ain't no doubt about it. Rotten public schools and all.