Booyoung Group’s groundbreaking ₩100 million ($75,000) childbirth bonus is making waves in South Korea, a nation grappling with the world’s lowest birth rate and desperately seeking innovative solutions to encourage larger families.
However, newly unveiled specifics highlight that the construction-centric conglomerate’s initiative is even more generous than initially perceived.
Booyoung’s founder and chairman, Lee Joong-keun, revealed on Tuesday that the group has extended the full bonus to an employee who welcomed a child merely one day after commencing employment.
In a CBS radio interview on Wednesday, the 85-year-old Lee validated this, clarifying that the payment is made not to the employee, but directly “to the child.”
“They (the employee) expressed concerns about eligibility, but we considered it a childbirth occurring after joining the company,” Lee stated.
He further emphasized that the company does not mandate repayment of the bonus should employees subsequently resign.
Booyoung launched the ₩100 million-per-child incentive in 2024, applying it retroactively to children born from 2021 onward. The company has disbursed over ₩13 billion under the policy to date.
The company reports a substantial 60 percent increase in births among employees since the program’s inception, alongside a fivefold surge in job applications.
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