Society News

Lee orders a review of perks for multicultural families, a day after his foreign-worker remark

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Wednesday, October 28, that his government will examine whether benefits that local authorities give multicultural families go further than they need to. Writing on X, he responded to an online forum post that asked why mothers from multicultural families share an admission priority at public postpartum care centres with national merit recipients, and rank ahead of mothers of twins. According to The Korea Herald, the review could include consultations with local governments and possible revisions to enforcement decrees, and could end with some programmes being abolished.

“Policies that give preferential treatment to multicultural families in Seoul and other local jurisdictions have become an issue.” — Lee Jae Myung, via The Korea Herald

Lee ended his post with “Thank you for the good point.” The Kyunghyang Shinmun set out the Seoul centre's priority tiers in detail: multicultural mothers sit in the second tier alongside merit awardees, North Korean defector families, people with disabilities and single mothers, while mothers of twins are in the third. The forum post also claimed a fee discount of up to 70%, a figure neither paper verified.

Both papers tied the post to a row from the day before, when Lee told a Cabinet meeting that foreign workers do not greatly help the national economy. He later said he had been comparing their contribution with that of Korean workers.

How each outlet framed it

• The Korea Herald — the policy review itself, plus criticism from migrant rights advocates over the foreign-worker remark.
• The Kyunghyang Shinmun — the foreign-worker controversy as the backdrop, and the online users whose claims prompted Lee's post.

What we don't know yet: which benefits will be reviewed, and whether local governments such as Seoul will agree to change them.