By Esther Kim In the face of a dying planet and economic challenges, we millennials are weighing our fertility options and making big choices. Over catch-up lunches back in New York, my Korean American friends, who work in tech and medicine, talked openly and candidly about the process and cost of freezing their eggs and embryos IVF as futureproofing, a form of insurance. Major tech companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft and Apple offer egg freezing to their employees and cover the cost of the procedure, up to $20,000 per employee, as part of their fertility benefit program.
Seoul has even begun to provide egg-freezing subsidies for millennials and Gen Zers this year to reverse the threat of national "extinction." But is freezing eggs on a heating planet akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Before jumping to this technocratic, capitalist solution, what are the underlying problems? The millennials dilemma The Washington Post summarized my generation's 99 problems. "Hammered by the Great Recession, soaring student debt, precarious gig employment, skyrocketing home prices and the Covid-19 crisis, millennials probably faced more economic headwinds in their childbearing years than any other generation," it said.
Nonetheless, the biological clock waits for no one. Thirty-five is the age in which one apparently becomes a "geriatric mother," so we contemplate the questions, do we want kids at all? Single or with a partner? Who? Can we afford it? And, in my case, as a foreign expat, where in the world might this happen? In Malaysia this summer, I got my first transvaginal ultrasound on the recommendation of a physician friend because I am sure that I want to have children someday. This imaging procedure gives a clear picture of the uterus and my remaining eggs.
After the fertility check-up, the gyno recommended trying for kids within two years, which felt like being struck by a lightning bolt. It sent me spiraling down bunny holes, comparing four potential countries to start a family, Korea, Taiwan, the United States and Malaysia. What was the cost and quality of medical care for giving birth? Did I want to stay in "confinement centers" or the luxury hotels for new moms in Taiwan? What would the child's citizenship be? Would the hypothetical child go to public or private school for bilingual education? Hanging over all this was the daunting prospect of experiencing pregnancy and birth abroad — by all accounts, an emotional, psychological and physically life-altering experience — without the familiar language, medical practices, friends or family.
Thankfully, I found other women who went down this road before me, NPR reporter Elise Hu in Seoul, Freelance journalist Clarissa Wei in Taipei and South African midwife Karen Wilmot, who wrote "Giving Birth Abroad: The Essential Guide for Expats Expecting." On the one hand, my mother would claim, "You know too much." On the other hand, I prefer having a clear, factual basis on my personal timeline for decision-making.
I accept that we know more. With birth control, education, financial independence and medical technology, girls and women live today in an extraordinary age of choice. Many can make informed decisions about whether they want to be a parent or not in this life.
Of course, my mom's point is equally true — not every inch of one's life can be known or controlled. We can attempt to predict, but we'll never fully know the impact of a child on our bodies, lifestyle or finances. Lyrics from the British folk singer Polly Paulusma's "She Moves in Secret Ways" come to mind.
"A choir of doctors and statesmen who've planned their sorry lives to the last day's end. / But look at all the happy things that happen by accident." Happy accident Yet Taiwan and Korea, in my view as a Korean American living in East Asia, allow little to no breathing room for happy accidents.
The countries place staggering demands on workers, mothers and students. Will our governments figure out how to make babies? Forgive my glibness, but it's not so hard? Pass common-sense policies for the women and the foreign nationals — in effect, domestic workers and caregivers — who will carry the nation's demographic crisis on their backs. Before even contemplating parental leave policies or child care, aim policies first at the housing crisis and workplace.
The rest, babies, will follow. If Korea must make up for a missing half million births to sustain the population, according to the most recent roundtable, the government must go beyond the band-aid, technocratic solutions of baby bonuses and egg freezing subsidies exclusively for conservative family unit. Two government interventions for population growth Start with affordable housing.
Two people are too few to raise a family. Fewer of us live in multigenerational households, but "it takes a village to raise a child." Solve the housing crisis and make "in-law apartments" affordable in cities so new parents can live near their chosen family or related family to help raise children.
Sex advice columnist Dan Savage put it bluntly, "Set up a system that makes parenting as miserable, isolating and punishing as possible, and then social conservatives sit around with their thumbs in their butts, wondering why so few people want to do this anymore." Use tools like rent control, public social housing or housing allowances. Above all, regulate the speculators, investors and banks who are gambling away the future of this generation and younger generations.
Second, increase annual leave. I ask you, who on this planet is in the mood to make babies when they are stressed, exhausted and depressed from work due to a measly three to 10 days off a year? In Germany, Norway and Sweden, full-time employees are entitled to a minimum of 25 to 30 days of annual leave within the first year of work. Taiwan starts with three days off; South Korea 10 days.
Children here hardly see their parents starting at age 3 when they start spending six hours in preschool. The long hours only grow with age and cram schools. If workers aren't chained to their jobs online and offline, they might actually have time and headspace for babies.
Consider and fix mandatory annual leave policies even before parental leave policies, and then the rest will follow. So, let's just say that the governments of South Korea and Taiwan are currently in a "Blank Space" when it comes to figuring out how to make babies, to allude to the most famous childless cat lady of all, Taylor Swift. They're trying to "Shake It Off" with baby bonuses and egg freezing subsidies, but it's clear they need to "Look What You Made Me Do" and implement serious systemic changes.
In this, I am reminded of the ancient Greek comedy "Lysistrata" — Lysistrata banded together with the women of Sparta to withhold sex from husbands and lovers until the men ended the Peloponnesian War, which had lasted more than 20 years. The women hold out until their desperate partners negotiate peace. The men and women are then reunited.
Women are neither stupid nor the "Mastermind." We just know a bad deal when we see one. "Style" the economic policies to create a more supportive environment for all working people.
This is how you make babies. Esther Kim is a freelance writer based in Taiwan. She was a senior manager at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York and Tilted Axis Press in London and a publicist at Columbia University Press.
She writes about culture and the Koreas..
