Families with three or more minor children will soon enjoy priority immigration processing at major airports across South Korea. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Families with three or more minor children will soon enjoy priority immigration processing at major airports across South Korea, including Incheon International Airport, as part of the government’s latest efforts to combat the country’s declining birth rate.
The new fast-track service, set to begin in June, is among several measures announced on March 11 by the Presidential Committee on Ageing Society and Population Policy during a meeting at the Seoul Government Complex.
Under the new airport policy, families qualify if all children are under 19 years old, and the service can be used even if not all children are present, provided at least one parent and one child are traveling together. The fast-track service is currently available only to pregnant women, disabled passengers, and those traveling with infants at Incheon, Gimpo, Gimhae, and Jeju airports.
The committee is also working with the hotel industry to improve accommodations for larger families. Proposed changes include expanding room capacity, excluding infants from maximum occupancy counts (typically four people), implementing fast-track check-in, and offering discounts on higher-grade rooms. Hotels providing these services will receive additional points in their rating evaluations.
In housing policy changes, the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) will increase preference points for recent parents in its “Reliable Jeonse” program, which offers housing at 90% of market deposit prices in the Seoul metropolitan area. Points for households with births within the past two years will double from one to two.
The government is also addressing marriage-related challenges. Starting in April, it will begin collecting and publishing pricing information for wedding venues and essential services like photography, dresses, and makeup. This data will be available on the Korea Consumer Agency’s price information website, with regional price distributions updated every two months and quarterly trend analyses.
Other initiatives include a pilot program launching in May to provide 5,000 senior citizens as childcare workers during school commuting hours, with the minimum service duration reduced from two to one hour.
The committee also announced plans to revise potentially stigmatizing terms related to marriage, childbirth, and childcare, such as “parental leave” and “career-interrupted women.” A task force including the committee, the Ministry of Government Legislation, and relevant departments will be formed this month to identify and replace such terms, including those related to social prejudices like “dementia.”
“We will continuously improve systems and practices to promote a culture that benefits families with multiple children,” said Joo Hyung-hwan, vice chairman of the committee. “We will also continue to identify and eliminate remaining marriage penalties across taxation, finance, and welfare sectors.”
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
