Can foreign domestic helpers help address Korea’s low birth rates?

Hong Kong introduced the foreign domestic helper system in 1973. Domestic helpers are exempt from the minimum wage system and usually work six days a week. Working couples commonly use them as they can be hired for around one million won per month. However, this does not mean working couples prefer foreign domestic helpers. Kelvin Woo (age 35), whom Dong-A Ilbo recently met in Hong Kong, explained that he had no other option but to hire a foreign helper. “My wife, who works at a law firm, asked the firm to work from home after giving birth, but the request was rejected. We couldn’t ask our parents due to health issues,” he said. What the couples desired was time to care for their child, not someone to take care of them. It is not easy to live with someone outside of the family, more so with foreigners, no matter how low the price of childcare.

Hong Kong’s case shows that the foreign domestic helper system could undermine the social value of raising children and justify long working hours. There would be no reason for companies to encourage childcare for their employees if childcare can be outsourced at a low cost. There would be no grounds to allow flexible working hours or working from home. Though the domestic helper system was effective in increasing the labor market participation rate, there were limitations in raising the birth rate. The employment rate of foreign housekeepers tripled over the next three decades as the standard of living of the middle class rose in the 1990s. As a result, the labor market participation rate of women with children under 5 years old increased by more than 15 percentage points. However, Hong Kong's total fertility rate, which was 1.28 in 2012, fell below 1 to 0.88 in 2020 and then dropped to an all-time low of 0.75 last year. This is not much different from Korea (0.72), which ranks the lowest in the world.

Singapore (0.97) and Taiwan (0.87), which also introduced the foreign domestic helper system, also recorded the lowest fertility rate on record last year. Despite its evident drawbacks, Korea benchmarking these countries by adopting a similar system is no more than desperate. East Asian countries facing the crisis of population extinction have characteristics in common. As Professor Paul Krugman of the City University of New York, 2008 Nobel Prize winner in Economics, pointed out, their economic growth has been achieved through perspiration, not inspiration. Therefore, long working hours are still considered a virtue and are also linked to status and promotion in the company.

Koreans also work unnecessarily long hours. According to the OECD, the average working hours of Korean workers was 1,901 hours per year, the second longest after Mexico, Costa Rica, and Chile. During the same period, Korea's labor productivity was 49.4 dollars per hour, only 32.8% of Ireland's, which ranked first (155.5 dollars). Do we really want to aim for a society where children are left in the care of foreign helpers so that people can focus on work? Setting our goals to address low birth rate issues is crucial rather than discussing domestic helpers and cost issues. It is time to cut excessive work hours, boost work productivity, and devote time to childcare.