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A wisecracking professional matchmaker breaks the ice as 40 people aged in their twenties and thirties gather at a hotel for a blind date.
Mass blind dates are common in South Korea but there's something unusual about this event in Asan: the city government is the one playing Cupid.
"Matchmaking is no longer a personal business, it's the duty of the nation," Yu Yang-Sun, a municipal official organizing the recent event, said in the city 90 km south of Seoul.
"Newborn babies are hardly seen here these days. If the young grow older unmarried and produce no kids, the nation will no longer have the basic human resources to sustain itself."
Asan's birthrate is 1.08, much lower even than the low national average, according to Ko Bun-Ja, one of Yu's deputies helping organize the event.
Five hours into the mass blind-date session, 12 of the 40 had decided to keep dating - much to the delight of city officials.
After years of promoting family planning in the nation of 48.6 million, South Korea in recent years has become increasingly alarmed at the prospect of an aging society - with a huge pensions bill and too few workers to sustain economic growth.
The government is increasing the number of nursery schools and providing more financial support - such as tax breaks or subsidized baby-sitting - for married couples who start families. Cash gifts are sometimes provided for newborns.
But the birthrate - the average number of babies born during a woman's lifetime - remained near the world's lowest at 1.19 last year. Fears are growing that the population will start shrinking within a decade.
Officials say the nation's low birthrate is partly due to more women joining the workforce and the lack of a comprehensive welfare system.
The high cost of child-rearing is also a deterrent.
Household spending on education reached an all-time high of 39.8 trillion won ($29.5 billion) last year, up 7.7 percent from a year earlier despite the economic downturn.
"This is a country where it's really uncomfortable to marry and raise children, given the shocking cost of education," said Bang Jeong-Ju, 30, one of the women on the blind date in Asan.
"My friends all say that if you cannot afford to give your kids a really good education, just don't get pregnant. Otherwise, pregnancy would be a sin."
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(Agencies) |
40名二三十歲的年輕男女聚在一個酒店參加一場相親會，一位俏皮的專業媒人打破了現場的沉默。
大型相親會在韓國十分普遍，但這次牙山市舉行的相親會有些特別：牽線搭橋的“愛神丘比特”是當地市政府。
組織這次相親會的市政官員柳揚松說：“做媒不再是個人的事，而是整個國家的責任。”牙山市位于首爾以南90公里。
“近年來在牙山很難看到新生兒，如果年輕人到了一定的年齡段不結婚不要孩子，那么國家將失去維持發展的基本人力資源。”
協助組織此次相親會的Ko Bun-Ja稱，牙山市的生育率為1.08，比已經很低的全國平均水平還要低得多。
讓政府官員頗感欣慰的是，相親會進行五個小時后，40人中就有12人已決定將繼續交往。
韓國目前的人口為4860萬，在推行計劃生育政策數年后，近年來韓國社會的老齡化趨勢日趨嚴重，養老金支出數額龐大，而可以維持經濟發展的勞動力則太少。
目前，韓國政府正增加幼兒園數量，并為結婚成家的人們提供更多的財政支持，例如減稅或為照顧孩子提供補貼等等，有時還為新生兒發放禮金。
但韓國去年的生育率（每個女性一生中平均生育孩子的數量）僅為1.19，仍接近全球最低水平。政府越來越擔心人口數量在十年之內會開始減少。
政府官員稱，造成韓國低生育率的一部分原因是因為越來越多的女性進入職場，而且福利制度也不夠完善。
撫養孩子成本高也是一個阻礙因素。
去年韓國的家庭教育開支創歷史紀錄，高達39.8萬億韓元（合295億美元），盡管受到經濟衰退的影響，但仍比前一年增加了7.7%。
30歲的Bang Jeong-Ju小姐參加了此次牙山市的相親會，她說：“在這個國家結婚和生孩子會過得很不舒服，因為教育費用實在太高。”
“我的朋友們都說，如果你無法為孩子提供真正良好的教育，那就別懷孕，否則懷孕將是一種罪過。”
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（實習生許雅寧 英語點津姍姍編輯） |
