Mothers need a wife

By Jason Lim

It's no longer big news that Korea suffers from the lowest birth rate in the world at just 0.78 children per woman in 2022 ― down from 0.81 the previous year. In the absence of a population inflow through immigration, a country needs an average of 2.1 children per woman to maintain the population at the existing level. This isn't an exclusively Korean problem. Other advanced countries, especially in Asia, are suffering from decreasing birth rates. However, as with many other phenomena, Korea tends to experience the macro trend in a more acute fashion.

It seems to be getting worse. In a recent survey conducted by Park Jeong-min, a professor of social welfare at Seoul National University, a mere 4 percent of unmarried Korean women in their 20s and 30s said that marriage and childbearing are essential in their lives. Money has been thrown at this problem but to no avail. As usual, the government is urged to enact policies to change housing, education, and inequality issues in order to reverse this trend.

However, President Yoon Suk Yeol recently admitted that the government had spent over $200 billion in the past 16 years to address the issue, only to see the birthrate decrease year after year. It reads like a long list of failed policies. Subsidize housing so as to make it easier for women to have babies. Subsidize education to make it easier for women to have babies. Subsidize companies to hire more women so that they can have more babies. Nothing is working.

Lacking from these policy debates is the admission that motherhood is hard. Very hard. And very unequal for women.

Men don't have to carry a foreign being in their bodies for nine months, suffering all the indignities that a fetus will impose on the mother-to-be, including a grossly expanded belly and the ambulatory awkwardness that comes with an extra 40 pounds inside you, only to end with several painful hours of child labor, if you're lucky. With the average first-time Korean mother's age now at 33.5 years, you have a higher chance of a C-section or, at least, an epidural, which is a huge, long needle injected straight into your spine. Yeah. It freaked me out when I saw my wife getting one. Imagine being the person that has to suffer through it.

Of course, birth is only the beginning. I didn't realize how difficult and painful breastfeeding was until my wife was going through it with my child. Every two hours in the beginning. Then the fevers. Then school. Then extracurricular lessons. Then the sullenness of growing up. Then, then, then… all punctuated by the resources in money, time and effort to raise that human being.

No wonder studies have found that happiness actually decreases when a couple has a child. Per the Atlantic's article titled, "What Becoming a Parent Really Does to Your Happiness." It states, "Other studies find that when a child is born, parents experience a decrease in happiness that doesn't go away for a long time, in addition to a drop in marital satisfaction that doesn't usually recover until the children leave the house." It goes on to say that those parents who say that children increased their sense of happiness are actually undergoing a memory distortion whereby "we tend to remember the peaks and forget the mundane awfulness in between." That's pretty damning.

However, keep in mind that parenthood is inherently and overwhelmingly more burdensome on the mother than it is on the father. Motherhood is not only hard; it's horrible. I know that engaged fathers can help, greatly in some societies. However, parenthood is inherently unequal and unfair toward the mothers both biologically and societally. It imposes a cost on the woman's autonomy and independence in a way that's comprehensive and obstinate.

When discussing the persistent gender wage gap, Pew's findings say that "A good share of the increase in the gender pay gap takes place when women are between the ages of 35 and 44. In 2022, women ages 25 to 34 earned about 92 percent as much as men of the same ages, but women ages 35 to 44 and 45 to 54 earned 83 percent as much. The ratio dropped to 79 percent among those ages 55 to 64. This general pattern has not changed in at least four decades."

What's amazing about this finding is that the underlying cause of the gap is due to the fathers working more: "Fathers aged 25 to 54 not only earn more than mothers the same age, but they also earn more than men with no children at home." Being a father frees men to work harder and longer, thereby earning more, while being a mother imposes the opposite effect as a mother and wife.

What all these findings say to me is that it's not the socioeconomic safety net that's at the root of Korean women not wanting to have babies. It's the inherent power dynamic that is triggered by motherhood. So, not having a baby is really the only logical choice when you're an educated and capable woman who wants to remain independent to follow your ambition and achieve autonomy: no matter how many subsidies the government promises you. In fact, mothers also need a wife.

Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.