During a Cabinet meeting in September 2022, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon proposed to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol a pilot project for the importation of foreign domestic workers. The initiative sought to ease the burden of childcare responsibilities on Korean women and address the nation’s alarming birthrate by providing “affordable” domestic workers from abroad. It also aimed to respond to the declining number of caregiving workers and the rapidly aging population in South Korea.
Modeled after similar policies in Singapore and Hong Kong, the project selected 100 candidates from the Philippines, which runs a government certification system for domestic services. The initial group, after completing their training, were expected to begin working in Korean households in September for a duration of six months. Priority was given to dual-income families, those with multiple children, and single-parent households in Seoul.
This bold initiative has raised numerous questions, including some regarding the qualifications of the domestic workers, the scope of their work, and concerns regarding cultural differences. Yet one of the most challenging issues has centered around how much the Filipino workers should be paid – to be more specific, whether they should be paid South Korea’s minimum wage of 9,860 won ($7.20) per hour.
Amid mounting controversy regarding the Filipino domestic workers’ remuneration, Oh clarified that he “disagrees” with the idea that applying the Korean minimum wage to foreign caregivers is the only way to ensure their human rights. “Wage levels should be determined based on skills and contributions, in accordance with market principles,” Oh insisted. “The non-market logic that human rights can only be guaranteed by providing [the Korean] minimum wage results in limiting opportunities to only 10, rather than 100, applicants.”
However, his stance has been sharply challenged, primarily by women and labor organizations in Seoul. On March 8, at an event celebrating International Women’s Day, the Korean Women’s Associations United labeled Oh a “stumbling block to gender equality,” denouncing him for devaluing household work and fostering discrimination against foreign caregivers.
On the diplomatic front, the Philippine ambassador to South Korea, Maria Theresa B. Dizon-De Vega, stated that both countries “have ratified international treaties that uphold equal remuneration and non-discrimination,” referring to standards set by international organizations such as the International Labor Organization (ILO). While not all ILO standards are legally binding, it has become more difficult for Seoul to shy away from the organization’s core principles, given that both South Korea and the Philippines are ILO members and that South Korea was elected in June to chair the ILO Governing Body for the 2024-2025 term.
Against this backdrop, with a promise to be paid the Korean minimum wage, the first group of 100 Filipino domestic workers arrived in Seoul on August 6. Based on a standard of working four hours a day and five days a week, the monthly cost for their service is approximately 1.19 million won ($900), which also incorporates necessary indirect costs, such as the four major social insurance programs.
However, the next big question has emerged: considering the cost, is hiring one of these domestic workers worth the expense for South Korean families? For young dual-income couples who would need a minimum of eight hours of childcare per day, the monthly cost would double to approximately 2.38 million won ($1,801). Given that the median income for Korean households in their 30s is 5.09 million won ($3,852), these couples would have to allocate roughly 47 percent of their total income to pay the domestic workers’ salary.
Setting aside the debate over whether the service is cost-effective, another significant – and likely the most important – question is whether this project can address Seoul’s devastatingly low birthrate. South Korea continues to set global records for low birthrates, which dipped to 0.72 nationwide in 2023, with Seoul reaching 0.55, the lowest birthrate in the country.
To illustrate how bad this number is, Joan Williams, a renowned labor and gender scholar, remarked that she had “never seen a fertility rate like that absent of a massive pandemic or a war.” She added, “The numbers say it’s a national emergency.”
According to Dudley Poston, a demography and sociology scholar, South Korea’s fertility rate has fallen into the “low-fertility trap,” suggesting it is unlikely to recover. Consequently, he argued that immigration is “the only real way” for the country to address the issue.
Given the dire circumstances, it’s understandable that Seoul has turned to policy cases from foreign countries for solutions. However, despite the Seoul city government citing the Singaporean model as a successful way to address the issue, the results indicate otherwise. While adopting the foreign domestic worker policy in 1978 might have encouraged more Singaporean women to work, Singapore’s birthrate has – despite some temporary upticks – followed an overall downward trend, falling below 1.0 for the first time in 2023 when it reached 0.97. Hong Kong, which adopted the policy in 1973 and is also referenced as a successful case, has experienced a similar downward trend.
Seoul’s pilot project also faces harsh criticism, and has been described as an attempt to “outsource” domestic work that is traditionally performed by Korean women to women from a less affluent country, risking potential friction with Manila. In an effort to smooth over any difficulties, South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo met with the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo, and discussed areas of cooperation between the two countries in the labor sector, including addressing Seoul’s workforce shortages with Filipino domestic workers. Seoul has already announced plans to increase the number of Filipino domestic workers employed in South Korea to 500 by next year and to 1,000 by 2028.
Moreover, the South Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor, which is leading the project together with the Seoul city government, has promoted Filipino domestic workers as young women who can “speak English,” a focus that ironically suggests the project may be misaligned with its intended goals. The emphasis on their language skills, combined with an unclear work scope, implies that while the cost of employing these workers may be higher than anticipated, it could potentially be justifiable, especially to passionate mothers in Seoul who are committed to their children’s education. However, this naturally raises the question of whether the primary objective of the foreign domestic worker program is to boost Seoul’s birthrate or provide English education for Korean children.
Many families in Seoul agree with Mayor Oh’s view that South Korea, which is recording its lowest birthrates in history, “cannot afford to disregard new initiatives merely due to some anticipated side effects.” However, the current pilot project, as it stands, is unlikely to contribute substantially to addressing the city’s birthrate crisis, as its effectiveness and sustainability remain unclear.
The criticisms surrounding the project have starkly revealed the harsh realities of how Seoul views childcare and foreign workers. Before seeking outside help, the city should first find ways to address fundamental internal challenges, including gender inequality and caregiving disparities across Korean society, to effectively tackle its demographic decline. Filipino domestic workers pursuing the Korean dream are simply not enough to save Seoul’s shrinking population.
