Can families returning home after centuries solve Korea’s demographic crisis?

At first glance, Donpo Elementary School is no different from thousands of elementary schools across South Korea.

But once you look beneath the surface, the differences are obvious.

For one thing, most of the students at the school in Asan, an industrial city near the capital Seoul, may look Korean but don’t speak the language.

“The other kids won’t understand any of the lessons if I don’t translate into Russian for them,” said 11-year-old Kim Yana.

Yana’s Korean is the best in the class, but she and most of her 22 classmates are native Russian speakers.

Nearly 80 percent of Donpo Academy’s students are classified as “multicultural students,” meaning they are either foreigners or have parents who are not Korean citizens.

While the school said it was difficult to know exactly the nationality of the students, it is believed that most of them are Koreans: ethnic Koreans who often come from Central Asian countries.

Amid plummeting birth rates and related labor shortages, South Korea has touted the settlement of Koryo and other ethnic Koreans as a possible solution to the country’s demographic crisis. But discrimination, marginalization and a lack of adequate resettlement programs make it difficult for many of them to integrate.

The Koreans are descendants of ethnic Koreans who immigrated to the Far East of the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before many were forcibly transferred to Central Asia in the 1930s as part of Stalin’s rule. “Border Clearance” Policy.

They live in former Soviet countries such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and for generations have assimilated into these cultures and no longer speak Korean because it is forbidden.

South Korea begins granting residency rights to Koreans and ethnic Koreans in China After the landmark ruling In 2001, the country’s Constitutional Court approved the ruling.

Last year, about 760,000 Koreans from China and Russian-speaking countries lived in South Korea, accounting for about 30% of South Korea’s foreign population. Many people settled in cities like Asan, where there were more factories and therefore more employment opportunities.

Dennis Ni, who moved to South Korea from Kazakhstan in 2018, is one of them.

“These days, I don’t see Koreans in factories [where I work],” he said. “They think the work is difficult, so they leave quickly. More than 80% of the people I work with are Koreans.

However, it was not only the Koreans who benefited from increased immigration. The influx of overseas Koreans could also help address a severe labor shortage in a country whose population continues to shrink.

South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world, and its fertility rate is declining year by year. In 2023, the birth rate will be 0.72, well below the 2.1 needed to maintain population stability without immigration.

estimate shows that if this trend continues, South Korea’s population may be reduced by half by 2100.

South Korea’s Employment and Labor Ministry said the country will need 894,000 workers over the next decade, especially in the service industry, to “achieve long-term economic growth forecasts.”

Workers from overseas are helping to bridge the gap.

“While the overseas Korean visa is often considered a form of support for ethnic Koreans, it is mainly intended to provide a stable workforce for the manufacturing industry,” said Choi Seori, a researcher at the Immigration Research and Training Center.

Mr Lee, an Asan recruiter who asked only to be identified by his surname, highlighted the dependence of the workforce on immigrants in another way.

“There are no Koreans,” he said. “The factories won’t operate.”

However, while immigration may be a solution to the country’s labor problems, it also creates its own set of problems in this racially homogeneous society.

Language is one of them.

“Korean kids only play with Koreans, and Russian kids only play with Russians because they can’t communicate,” said 12-year-old student Kim Bobby.

To overcome the language barrier, Donpo Elementary School offers two hours of Korean language classes to foreign students every day. Even so, teacher Kim Eun-joo is still worried that many children will “have difficulty understanding the curriculum” when they advance to higher grades.

Academic competition in South Korea is notoriously rife, and schools are losing local students as parents fear their children’s education will be affected because Korean courses must be conducted at a slower pace.

High school enrollment rates for multicultural students are already slightly lower than for natives, according to an official national survey conducted in 2021. If you support, go to school.

Language isn’t the only difference.

Mr. Ni said he noticed that many of his Korean neighbors had moved out of their buildings.

“Korean people don’t seem to like having Koreans as neighbors,” he said with an awkward smile. “Sometimes Koreans ask us why we don’t smile at them. That’s just how we are; it’s not that we’re angry.

He said there were frequent disputes between children in his neighborhood, and he had heard of cases in which Korean children became “rude” during quarrels. “After that, Korean parents told their children not to play with Korean children. I think that’s how apartheid happened.

“I’m worried about how South Korea will accept other immigrants,” said Seong Dong-gi, an expert at Inha University’s Korea Institute, explaining that the influx of ethnic Koreans who “do not look like Koreans” There are already “significant headwinds.”

Ms Choi said the demographic crisis should be a “catalyst for society to look at immigrants differently”. “It’s time to think about how to integrate them.”

In 2023, approximately 2.5 million foreigners will live in South Korea, which is also a popular destination for migrant workers from Nepal, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Most of them work in manual jobs and only 13% work in professional jobs.

“There is no clear immigration plan at the national government level. Solving the country’s foreign population problem has been an afterthought,” said Lee Chang-won, director of the Immigration Research and Training Center.

Mr Lee added that the current immigration policy was “heavily biased towards low-skilled workers”, leading to a “widespread perception” that foreigners could only work in South Korea for a certain period of time and then leave. As a result, he said, there is little discussion about the long-term settlement of all immigrants.

Under current law, the government only needs to provide vocational training and other support to foreigners who marry locals. However, the same rights do not apply to families consisting entirely of foreigners.

Analysts say new laws targeting these families are urgently needed.

An Asan official who requested anonymity said it would be difficult to secure funding for more facilities for Koryowon families because there is no legal requirement to do so.

But despite the challenges, Mr. Ni said he does not regret his decision to move to South Korea. He still gets a better living environment and a higher salary here.

“For my children, this is home,” he said. We want to go back to Korea.