New parents in South Korea are getting $750 every month as Seoul launches its 'birth encouragement' gambit to slow population decline

• Seoul officials on Tuesday announced a new "birth encouragement" program to raise fertility rates.
• The city of some 10 million is expected to spend $1.35 billion on new families, per Yonhap.

Seoul is set to pour $1.35 billion into incentives and facilities aimed at convincing couples to marry and have children as South Korea's fertility rate continues to tumble.

The new "birth encouragement" program introduces a bevy of financial benefits for family planning, the South Korean news agency Yonhap News reported on Tuesday, citing local officials.

These include subsidies for women to freeze their eggs, making public spaces available for rent as wedding venues, and giving bonuses to companies that introduce pro-childcare policies, per Yonhap.

The South Korean government also runs an allowance system that now gives all parents with a newborn $750 a month until their baby turns one year old.

This monthly sum used to be $520 but was raised to $750 at the start of 2024.

After their child turns 1, parents will also be eligible for an allowance of $375 a month for one year.

If the child is already being sent to a childcare center, a portion of the money will be disbursed through vouchers to offset attendance fees.

Seoul also plans to introduce early-morning childcare center services, which allows parents to drop their kids off before school hours officially start, Yonhap reported.

The centers plan to provide transport for the children to go to and from school directly from the childcare facilities.

And 100 families are expected to receive a foreign domestic helper in the first half of 2024 under a new pilot program, per the news agency.

South Korea, like China and Japan, is suffering from a severe population decline that threatens to unbalance its economy in the coming decades, with a growing number of retirees having to rely on a dwindling supply of younger workers.

Nearly a fifth of South Korea's entire 51 million population lives in Seoul, where the fertility rate was 0.59 in 2022, per the latest government statistics.

The entire country's birth rate, by comparison, was 0.78 that year.

Many young South Koreans, spooked by soaring housing costs and a steadily rising cost of living, say they are putting off marriage and childrearing largely due to financial concerns, Business Insider previously reported.