South Korea matchmakes singles to increase childbirth

South Korea has opted for matchmaking unmarried citizens in the bid to increase childbirth in the Asian country. In the latest incident, 100 South Korean men and women gathered at a hotel near Seoul dressed in their best with name tags hanging on their clothes, hoping to find love.

The government decided to organise the mass blind-dating event in the Seongnam city to reverse the reducing popularity of marriage and enthusiasm towards parenthood.

The participants, in their 20s and 30s, sat quietly next to one another until a relationship coach kick started the event with a rock-paper-scissor game, quickly filling the room with chatter and laughter.

Lee Yu-mi, 36, who works for the city government, said she had to apply three times to finally get a spot at the event.

“I had no idea it would be this competitive,” she said.

After five rounds of events this year, 198 people among 460 left the event as “couples,” agreeing to exchange contacts with their pairs, the city said.

The South Korean capital Seoul had considered a similar event but put the plan on hold after facing criticism that it would be a waste of taxpayers’ money that failed to tackle the reasons behind people opting not to marry and have babies – most notably the sky-high costs of housing and education.

But, Jung Jae-hoon, a professor at the department of social welfare at Seoul Women’s University, said it was “nonsense” to expect these events to lead to higher birth rates.

“You need to spend more money directly on supporting pregnancy, child delivery and parenting to call it a policy to boost birth rates,” Jung told Reuters.

Despite criticism, thousands of people have signed up for this year’s blind-dating events arranged by the Seongnam city.