Chris Lau, Gawon Bae, Jake Kwon and Nayoon Kim:
For a country with the world’s lowest fertility rate – one that has spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to encourage women to have more babies – the idea of barring children from places like cafes and restaurants might seem a little counterproductive.
But in South Korea, “no-kids zones” have become remarkably popular in recent years. Hundreds have sprung up across the country, aimed largely at ensuring disturbance-free environments for the grown-ups.
There are nearly 80 such zones on the holiday island of Jeju alone, according to a local think tank, and more than four hundred in the rest of the country, according to activist groups.
Doubts, though, are beginning to creep in about the wisdom of restricting children from so many places, fueled by concerns over the country’s growing demographic problems.
In addition to the world’s lowest birthrate, South Korea has one of the world’s fastest aging populations. That has left it with a problem familiar to graying nations across the world, namely: how to fund the pension and health care needs of a growing pool of retirees on the tax income generated by a slowly vanishing pool of workers.