Basic Report

In the estimates of 2016, the total fertility rate was 1.25 births per woman for Korea, which was the lowest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries and ranked 220th in 224 countries, occupying the lowest places along with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao and Singapore. There has even been a negative prediction that if this trend of low fertility rates continues, the population of Korea would be half of the current one in 2100. Low birthrate issues we have currently faced are not a matter of choice, but a matter of life or death that determines our future, so not only the government but every society has to deal with them in a detailed way as a national problem.Korea, as measures to cope with low birthrate issues at a government level, enacted the Framework Act on Low Birth Rate in an Aging Society and established the Low Birth Rate & Aging Society Committee in September 2005 to lay the groundwork for taking action against an aging society with low birthrates. The first master plan was put into effect in 2006 to ensure the viability of governmental efforts, followed by the second one in 2011 and the third in 2016. These policies to resolve low birthrate problems, even though implemented at a national level, have not been influential and efficient, revealing their limitations. Several reasons for the limitations include lack of strategic and long-term objectives of policies, absence of a central control tower, and inefficient allocation of roles among central and local governments.In addition to political efforts of the central government, local autonomous governments too have attempted to execute a wide range of policies based on the governmental guidelines for resolution of low birthrate problems but shown limitations in offering appropriate and efficient services due to insufficient budget and human resources resulting from limited subsidies and a few sources of revenue. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to promote the rational allocation of roles to central and local governments in order to secure the efficiency of policies by first bringing up the situation in which a low fertility rate, although being a critical issue to be handled at a national level, has not yet been dealt with in an efficient manner. For that purpose, this study examined the policies and programs regarding low birthrates that have been established and implemented by the central government and presented guidelines for efficient allocation of roles to central and local autonomous governments (metropolitan, primary).To that end, this study suggested a way to allocate functions to governments to ensure efficient implementation of low birthrate policies and conducted theoretical examination on rational allocation of functions to central and local (metropolitan and primary) autonomous governments. Second, an objective and rational methodology that can be applied to other sectors in allocating functions to governments was presented, and with the methodology, an intergovernmental function allocation index was formulated. For the index, the AHP with experts' opinions was used, and the criteria presented in the related literature (principles of locality, efficiency, responsibility, effectiveness, and residents' satisfaction improvement) were reviewed so as to derive their relative importances and set up the weights of each factor. Last, a survey was carried out with public officials in charge of population policy, and with the “index of central-local governments function allocation for low birthrate policies” (a tentative name), functions of policies and programs on low birthrates were allocated to central and local governments by objective and rational standards. Finding a rational structure of allocating roles to central and local governments is one of the fundamental elements in those studies on low birthrate issues, so it is hoped that this study provides an opportunity for each of the central and local governments to be satisfied with their roles and to enhance the effectiveness of services for the public.