hankyoreh

A recently-released report has shown that South Korea lags far behind other advanced countries in terms of welfare spending for children.

According to the report by Bae Hwa-ok, a social welfare professor at Gyeongsang National University, South Korean government spending on families with children accounted for just 0.2 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), representing the lowest figure among the 30 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries.

The average figure for expenditures by other countries in the organization stood at 2.4 percent. The report was announced in a Korean health and welfare magazine.

In other countries, government spending on families with children is usually carried out in the form of cash, financial subsidies for child care and other tax incentives. In South Korea, however, the report demonstrated that there is little dedicated cash and few tax incentives for welfare spending.

Luxembourg, Australia and Austria, by contrast, provided cash support amounting to 2.5-3.5 percent of their GDPs. Of the 30 OECD members, Luxembourg’s expenditures amounted to 4.1 percent of the GDP and the figures for Denmark, France, Norway and Sweden stood at 3.9 percent, 3.8 percent, 3.6 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively.

Child care and early childhood education services for preschoolers in South Korea were also ranked the lowest among the 28 OECD countries surveyed, according to the report.

In comparison with other advanced nations that spent 0.7 percent of their GDP on child care and early childhood education, South Korea assigned only 0.12 percent of its GDP for these purposes. The report also noted that one child care provider in South Korea is responsible for the care of as many as 20.8 children, the highest number after Mexico which places 28.3 children in the care of a single child care provider.

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