Critics label as ‘absurd’ idea from government-backed thinktank as country seeks to address population decline
A government thinktank in South Korea has sparked anger after suggesting that girls start primary school a year earlier than boys because the measure could raise the country’s low birthrate.
A report by analysts at the Korea Institute of Public Finance said creating a one-year age gap between girls and boys at school would make them more attractive to each other by the time they reached marriageable age.
The claim is based on the idea that men are naturally attracted to younger women because men mature more slowly. Those women, in theory, would prefer to marry older men.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A government thinktank in South Korea has sparked anger after suggesting that girls start primary school a year earlier than boys because the measure could raise the country’s low birthrate.
Shin Gyeong-a, a sociology professor at Hallym University, told the Korea JoongAng Daily newspaper: “That such a report, without any screening, was published in a democratic country – by a state-run research institute that will evaluate measures to address low birthrates in the future, no less – is ridiculous.”
Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the main opposition party, described the report’s recommendations as “absurd”, adding: “We need to take fundamental and macro-level measures [against the low birthrate].”
The proposal was “worse than telling them not to have kids”, another wrote, while others complained that taxpayers’ money had been used to fund the report.
Last month, the Seoul metropolitan government said it would offer up to 1m won (£775) to couples who have sterilisation procedures reversed.
This summer, 100 Filipino domestic helpers and childminders will arrive in South Korea as part of a pilot programme designed to ease the pressure on working women who fear they will have to leave their jobs if they have children.
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