The ruling People Power Party (PPP) on Thursday announced a set of measures to help parents with child care, including an expansion of state-funded after-school programs, in an effort to curb South Korea's declining birthrate. Along with plans to expand the Neulbom School program to all elementary schools, the PPP seeks to distribute a 500,000-won (US$374.2) cash voucher to students at the beginning of each semester, from the first year of elementary school until they graduate from high school. It also pledged to increase access to state funded child care services in an effort to reduce the burden of working parents, said Rep. Yu Eui-dong, the PPP's chief policymaker. "In order to solve the low birthrate problem, it is important to foster an environment where rearing a child is considered a rational decision instead of forcing people to bear children," Yu said at a meeting to introduce the measures. Thursday's plans are the second set of election promises from the PPP aimed at boosting South Korea's decl ining birthrate, ahead of the April 10 elections. Earlier on, the PPP announced plans to guarantee parental leave for both mothers and fathers and establish a new ministry to oversee the country's downward demographic spiral. South Korea's fertility rate -- the number of children expected to be born to a woman during her lifetime -- was at an all-time low of 0.78 in 2022, well below the replacement level of 2.1 needed to maintain the country's population stable at 51.5 million. Source: Yonhap News Agency