Gyeonggi Province is moving to keep its postpartum care subsidy program after a plan to end it abruptly drew a strong public backlash.
The province sent an official notice to its 31 cities and counties on the 30th of last month instructing them to continue accepting subsidy applications as before, Gyeonggi Province said on the 5th. "Negotiations with the provincial council over the supplementary budget are still underway, but we understand there is broad agreement on restoring the postpartum care budget," an official at the province's health bureau said. "We sent the notice on the assumption that the budget will be restored."
The dispute began early last month, when Gyeonggi Governor Choo Mi-ae announced the program would end, saying the province had been unable to allocate the 8 billion won needed to fund the subsidy for October through December because of fiscal strains.
Launched in 2019 under then-Governor Lee Jae-myung, the program has paid 500,000 won per newborn in local currency vouchers, with the province and local governments splitting the cost evenly. When the funding was left out of the second supplementary budget as well, word spread that payments would stop from October, triggering anger among expectant parents.
One expectant father, who said his child is due in November, wrote on the province's petition board that it was unacceptable to cut a welfare benefit without warning just ahead of the final quarter of the year. He said he had planned his childbirth budget on the basis of the province's welfare commitment.
A petition titled "Opposing Gyeonggi Province's Surprise Abolition of the Postpartum Care Subsidy," posted on the 9th of last month, drew 10,000 signatures within a day and had surpassed 26,000 as of the 5th. Petitions that gather more than 10,000 signatures require an official response from the governor within 30 days.
A separate petition calling for Choo's resignation also appeared. Local governments including Yongin and Siheung were flooded with complaints demanding that they fund measures from their own budgets. The Gyeonggi Association of Mayors and County Governors gathered views from all 31 municipalities and submitted a formal request to Choo, calling for a review of the across-the-board change in subsidy rates.
Choo said on social media on the 13th of last month that this year's budget had been drawn up to cover only nine months from the start, and that with no money to fill the three-month gap, the province could not halt school meals or support for people with disabilities and vulnerable groups. She called it an unavoidable choice. The provincial council, however, raised objections across party lines to the cuts in livelihood spending and pushed to restore the subsidy.
Applications for the postpartum care subsidy can be filed at neighborhood community service centers or through the Gyeonggi Minwon 24 website, with payment made within 14 days of application.
