South Korea's 'No Kids Zones'

South Korea has the world’s lowest birth rate at just 0.78 per woman. The government in Seoul has spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to encourage South Koreans to have more babies, but the birth rate continues to plummet.

The National Assembly’s youngest member Yong Hye-in believes that this fall could be due to social as well as economic reasons.

Yong Hye-in: "(The male-dominated government) wants to boost birth rates and are scared the low birth rate will lead to a disappearing South Korea. But they also prefer it if the noisy, difficult and painful process of raising a child be done separately, somewhere out of sight, on a remote island."

This attitude that children should be out of sight and certainly not heard is in evidence across the capital Seoul. Numerous 'No Kids Zones' have sprung up across the city. When Yong Hye-in gave birth to her son and went out with him for the first time she found herself prohibited from her favourite places.

Yong Hye-in: "I had now become this person who could be so easily rejected – at places like restaurants, cafes, bars and movie theatres. I felt like I had been expelled from society. I remember crying so much on my way home."

'No Kids Zones' offer a raft of official justifications for banning children, ranging from disruptive noise to inconsiderate parents. Even the National Assembly, where Yong Hye-in works, is effectively a 'No Kids Zone'. It has no statutory maternity leave and Yong Hye-in was only the third sitting assembly member to give birth whilst in office. Yong Hye-in founded and heads the Basic Income Party. She believes that unless the government addresses the issues on which her party campaigns – inequality and the gender pay gap, as well as the social issues around having children – South Korea’s birth rate will continue to drop. View Less