In South Korea, authorities pay grandparents $200 a month for childcare
In this way, authorities are experimenting with new ways to solve the problem of the country's rapidly declining birth rate.
Photo: AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon
In South Korea, grandparents are paid a monthly allowance of about $200 for childcare, writes The Independent.
Such an experimental program was launched in Seoul, the capital of Korea, and proved successful. In March, it will be expanded to Jeju Island.
Seoul launched the grandparent childcare allowance program in 2023 and pays families $204 per month if grandparents or other relatives provide childcare for at least 40 hours each month.
By the end of 2025, 5,466 people in Seoul had received the allowance.
To be eligible for the program, families must have children aged two to three years, and the family income cannot be higher than 150% of the national median. The program covers families where both parents work, single-parent families, or large families.
Grandparents are increasingly filling the gaps caused by the limited availability of childcare centers.
Policies aimed at facilitating childcare have become a priority for governments across East Asia, which are struggling with a serious demographic crisis. After almost a decade of steady decline in birth rates, South Korea recorded an increase in 2025.
Last year, 254,500 children were born, a 6.8 percent increase from the previous year, and the largest annual increase since 2007. The total fertility rate — a measure of how many children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime — rose from 0.75 to 0.80, returning to the 0.8 range for the first time in four years.
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