Families of Booyoung Group employees attend the company’s event marking their reception of childbirth support incentives of 100 million won ($68,299) per child at the group's head office in Jung-gu, Seoul, Thursday. A total of 36 babies born to Booyoung employees received the one-time cash stipend.
To date, the company’s cumulative childbirth incentive payouts have reached 13.4 billion won.
During the event, Lee Joong-keun, chairman of the construction-centered business group, emphasized his plans to keep paying the childbirth incentives until the country's fertility rate reaches 1.5.
South Korea's fertility rate, the average number of babies a woman is expected to have between ages 15 and 49, hit 0.72 in 2023, less than half of the OECD's average of about 1.5. It has slowly rebounded to above 0.8 in recent months.
khnews@heraldcorp.com
