South Korea’s Jeju Island will begin paying grandparents a monthly stipend of around $200 for time spent looking after their grandchildren, as local governments experiment with new ways to support childcare and address the country’s rapidly declining birth rate.
The programme, set to begin in March, will pay grandparents who care for young children instead of relying on formal childcare services, according to public broadcaster KBS. The initiative was approved by the Jeju provincial assembly, and was being implemented after a similar programme proved successful in Seoul.
A February survey by the Seoul government found that 99.2 per cent of grandparents providing childcare were satisfied with the programme, while 99.5 per cent said they would recommend it to others. According to a report by Korea JoongAng Daily, 5,466 people benefited from the allowance in Seoul by the end of 2025.
Seoul began the “grandchild care allowance” programme in 2023, and pays families 300,000 won ($204) per month when grandparents or other relatives provide at least 40 hours of childcare each month. To be eligible, families need to have children aged between two to three years old, and the household income could not be higher than 150 per cent of the national median. The children must belong to households facing childcare shortages, such as dual-income families, single-parent households or families with multiple children.
The initiative reflects a shift in how childcare is now organised in South Korea, where rising living costs and changing work patterns have made grandparents an increasingly important source of support for young families. A policy review by the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family last year found that maternal grandmothers made up 54 per cent of supplementary caregivers in households participating in the programme, followed by paternal grandmothers at 36.4 per cent, while grandfathers accounted for less than 10 per cent of caregivers.
After nearly a decade of steady decline in the birth rate, South Korea recorded a rise in 2025. Last year, 254,500 babies were born, up 6.8 per cent from the previous year and the largest annual increase since 2007. The total fertility rate rose from 0.75 to 0.80, returning to the 0.8 range for the first time in four years.
