Unravelling variations in 21st century East Asia's pronatalist family policy through the lens of inclusiveness

Abstract

Facing dwindling birthrates, East Asia has shown unprecedented fertility-oriented family policy expansion. Despite this shared objective, this research argues that East Asian family policy has varied in 'inclusiveness', namely, the extent to which it equally promotes all births, irrespective of familial socioeconomic status in particular. Firstly, from an inclusiveness-centred perspective, this article builds three different ideal pronatalist family policy approaches: the 'inclusive', where pronatalist family support is provided for almost everyone; the 'selective', where it is more accessible to middle-/upper-income households; and the 'residual', where it is concentrated on low-income classes. Guided by this conceptual framework, it compares Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. It reveals that Japan and Singapore promoted a selective path, and Taiwan favoured a residual one, whilst South Korea pioneered more inclusive support. However, it also suggests that the other three societies recently adopted more inclusive pronatalist family policies, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.