Similar to South Korea and Japan, North Korea is also grappling with a low birthrate problem, which the North Korean government fears could lead to a weakening of the party and the military.
To address the problem, the authorities have introduced new incentive measures for families to have more children in exchange for honorary titles, inclusion in special distribution lists, and exemptions from mass mobilizations and other mandatory collection assignments. But residents are reacting with a lack of enthusiasm to the plan.
“Since the start of the new year, everyone has been busy day in and day out with mass mobilizations and production quotas,” a source in Kangwon Province told Daily NK on February 19. “But mothers with at least three children were not required to participate in the mobilization.”
“For the past few years, the authorities have really stepped up requirements on people to provide materials for an increasing number of construction projects, but families with three children are exempt from these assignments,” he added. “The exemptions began with families in Pyongyang, but it’s being extended across the country.”
The source also noted that the local provincial and military authorities are stocking up on food reserves after receiving orders from the central authorities to provide prenatal nutritional supplements and food for mothers with many children.
Previously, Kim Jong Il instituted a form of recognition of mothers as “Maternal Heroes” and “Heroes of Effort,” but many women have tried to avoid giving birth in recent years due to a lack of state welfare. Now under Kim Jong Un, the authorities are trying to inspire more women to have children through such “lead-by-example” publicity schemes and new incentives.
“The reality is that there are many rural schools where classes have no more than a few students each,” a source in South Pyongan Province said, pointing to evidence of a declining birthrate. “The authorities see this and are trying to encourage more births through incentives, but most mothers consider the cost of raising a child to be much higher than the incentives they would receive, so they are largely dismissing the new measures.”
The problem seems to be that many residents do not see exemptions from mobilizations and collection assignments as falling under the category of state welfare. These residents are asking how simply lifting requirements of forced work assignments can be considered generosity.
Some are asking what the point of having more children would be if their children would still be subjected to difficult work and a lack of food during mobilizations. The South Pyongan Province-based source added that residents are beginning to think they should only have children if they can take care of them, arising somewhat ironically from the idea of self-reliance being pushed on them by the authorities.
The latest measures follow a history of the North Korean authorities highlighting large families as dutiful patriots to the nation.
In 2012, Korean Central Television bestowed the title of “Maternal Hero” upon a mother in Wonsan who gave birth to ten children. “While most families these days are only having two or three children, (this mother) wondered,’Who will take care of our nation?’ and had ten children,” the report said, encouraging viewers to think of strengthening the military in the future by having more children.
